Preamble

The House, met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

Major COHEN: I beg leave to present to this honourable House a National Petition signed by 824,105 of His Majesty's subjects. The Petition relates to what are usually known as the "Seven Years' Limit" and "Final Awards." Your petitioners humbly pray that:
(1) The time limit imposed in the Royal Warrants should be entirely abolished for officers, men, widows, and dependants.
(2) Officers and men should have the right of appealing to an independent tribunal in cases where the Ministry refuse to grant further compensation after a final allowance, and the claimant can produce medical evidence that the disability has reasserted itself or become worse.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

OLDHAM CORPORATION BILL [Lords] (By Order).

As amended, considered.

CLAUSE 272.—(Articles conveyed in vehicles to be properly secured.)

Amendment made: Leave out the Clause.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

CLAUSE 273.—(Throwing, etc., of articles from vehicles.)

Amendment made: Leave out the Clause.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Ordered,
That Standing Orders 223 and 243 be suspended, and that the Bill be now read the Third time."—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

London County Council (General Powers) Bill,

Slough Trading Company Bill,

West Cheshire Water Board Bill,

Stockton-on-Tees Corporation Bill,

Lords Amendments considered, in pursuance of the Order of the House of 29th July, and agreed to

Hoylake and West Kirby Urban District Council Bill [Lords],

Read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

Stock Conversion and Investment Trust Bill [Lords],

A verbal Amendment made; Bill read the Third time, and passed, with Amendment.

Leek Urban District Council Water Bill [Lords],

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

London, Midland and Scottish Railway Bill [Lords] (by Order),

Third Reading deferred till To-morrow.

GLASGOW BOUNDARIES BILL (by Order),

As amended, considered:

Ordered, That Standing Orders 223 and 243 be suspended, and that the Bill be now read the Third time.—(The Chairman of Ways and Means.)

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

Oral Answers to Questions — NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

STABILITY OF WAR PENSIONS.

GOVERNMENT DECISION.

Lieut.-Colonel DALRYMPLE WHITE: 1.
asked the Minister of Pensions whether he is now in a position to announce the decision of the Government with regard to any further stabilisation of the rates of war pensions?

The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Major Tryon): The Government have carefully considered in the interests of pensioners the practicability of a settlement of pension rates for a longer period than for the year to March, 1927, already announced.
As the House is aware, pensions for the Great War were, on the advice of a Select Committee of this House, brought into definite relationship to the cost of living. They were increased to their present rates in 1919 on the basis of an increased cost of living represented by the index figure of 115 per cent. in excess of the pre-War cost. After an initial period of 3½ years ending in March, 1923, which was for special reasons subsequently extended for a further three years to March, 1926, they were, by the terms of the Royal Warrant, made to vary up or down if the average cost of living changed by at least 5 per cent. That cost does, in fact, now show a substantial decline from the figure of 1919, and if the rates of pension were reduced proportionately the annual cost of pensions would be lower by approximately 6½ million pounds.
It has, however, always been the view of the Government that the operation of the Warrant in regard to rates should, in the interests of pensioners, be conditional on a reasonable stability being reached in the cost of living, and the Government long ago intimated that under present conditions they were not in favour of a reduction of rates. A settlement of the rates in perpetuity is not at present attainable consistently with the interests of all parties concerned, but the Government have come to the conclusion, after full consideration of all the known factors affecting the matter, that, while maintaining the present relationship of pension rates to the cost of living, a substantially larger measure of security can reasonably be given to the pensioner than has already been announced.
The Government have, therefore, decided that, as regards the operation of Article 24 (a) of the Royal Warrant on the rates of pension, and other allowances for the classes of beneficiary provided for by the Royal Warrant and subject to the present terms of the Warrants, and the War Pensions Acts, no change in the present rates shall be made so long as
the average cost of living, as certified by the Ministry of Labour, lies somewhere between a given maximum and minimum figure. The minimum figure for this purpose will be 60 per cent. in excess of the pre-War cost of living, while the maximum is that already provided by the Warrant, namely, the cost of living in the year 1919.
With a view to giving still further security to the pensioner, the average cost of living will be, not the annual average originally prescribed by the Royal Warrant, but an average over three years, and the average will not in any case operate before 1929. The effect of this settlement will be to give stability to the present rates for at the very least three years from 31st March, 1926, and from all present indications for an even longer period.

MEDICAL HISTORIES.

Mr. HAYES: 3.
asked the Minister of Pensions whether, in cases of appeal by a widow or orphan children of an ex-service man whose medical history discloses venereal disease, he will sanction the omission of all reference thereto from the précis sent to the widow or other appellant when such disease has no relationship to the cause of death?

Major TRYON: It has been the consistent policy of the Ministry, reinforced by repeated representations, to make the précis in a case of appeal a complete statement of the man's medical history as known to the Ministry, in order that the tribunal may have before it precisely the same and as full information as that on which the Ministry came to their decision. The Ministry are not in a position to determine the view which the tribunal may take as regards the connection between the cause of death and any other disease of which there is evidence in the man's medical history. The ease for presenting a complete statement to the tribunal is in my view so important that I could not authorise any exception to the rule.

Mr. HAYES: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether he has received any representation from the local advisory councils on this matter?

Major TRYON: The point has been raised frequently, but, as regards Advisory Councils, I should like to refer
to the records in the matter in order to see how it stands. It has presented very great difficulty for many years past. It is a very difficult question, as the hon. Member well knows.

DEPENDANTS' PENSIONS.

Mr. HUDSON (for Mr. ROBINSON): 2.
asked the Minister of Pensions what is the number of persons in receipt of other dependants' pensions under Article 22 of the Royal Warrant of 1922, and the corresponding orders affecting the Navy and Air Force; whether he will ascertain the number who will be 65 years of age on 2nd January, 1928, and communicate the figure to the House at the earliest possible date; and the number of other dependants who are children under 16 years of age?

Major TRYON: The number of persons in receipt of pensions under Article 22 of the Royal Warrant of 1919 and corresponding Articles affecting the Navy and Air Force, is 2,080. Of these some 640 were born in the year 1862 or earlier. About 150 children under 16 years of age pensioned with their parents are included in the figure first quoted.

Oral Answers to Questions — POTTERY TRADE (LEAD POISONING).

Mr. CLOWES: 4.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many cases there are at the present time of persons receiving compensation for lead poisoning in the pottery trade, the length of time they were employed, and the ages of the persons; and whether any persons are receiving compensation who have only been employed in factories where low solubility or leadless glaze is used?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir William Joynson-Hicks): I regret that this information is not available anywhere.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOTELS, CARLISLE (BOOTS' WAGES).

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: 5.
asked the Home Secretary whether be is aware that a wage of 18s. per week is paid for the services of boots at the hotels under Government
control in the Carlisle area; and whether he can do anything to improve the situation?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I have made inquiry, and am informed that the persons employed as "boots" in the State-managed hotels in the Carlisle area receive free board and lodging in addition to their weekly wages except in one case of a temporary employé, who receives board without lodging. I am satisfied in all the circumstances that there is no necessity to make any alteration in the terms of their employment.

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the man is employed also in cleaning motor vehicles, for which the charge is 5s. a time, and that he gets no recognition for that work over and above the 18s.?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I have had no complaint at all. It is common knowledge that people occupying this position do get little emoluments in addition to their wages.

Colonel WOODCOCK: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that this shows the lack of success in State trading?

Oral Answers to Questions — ALIENS.

Mr. LOUGHER: 6.
asked the Home Secretary whether he has any particulars showing the number and nationality of aliens landed in Great Britain during the years 1913 and 1924, respectively, and for the first six months of this year; and the number which have been granted permission to permanently reside in this country during the same periods?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: The number of aliens (excluding transmigrants) who landed in the United Kingdom in 1913 was 537,398, but the statistics prepared under the Aliens Act, 1905, do not enable me to state their nationalities. The bulk of them were not liable to inspection under that Act, and did not require permission to enter the country or to reside here. The number who arrived in 1924 was 388,129, and in the first half of this year 162,982. For particulars as to their nationalities, I must refer my hon. Friend to the annual and quarterly Returns presented to Parliament: that covering April, May, and June is now in the Press.
As I informed my hon. Friend the Member for South Kensington (Sir W. Davison) on 28th May last, in 1924, apart from residents returning after an absence abroad, the number of aliens whose stay might be expected to be permament was in the neighbourhood of 2,000. Information as regards this year will be included in the next annual Report.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROAD ACCIDENTS, KENNINGTON.

Mr. HAYES: 8.
asked the Home Secretary the number of accidents which have occurred within the vicinity of the junction of Vassall Road and Elliott Road, Kennington, during the past six months and the number of persons injured; and whether he will consider the placing of a constable on traffic duty at this dangerous crossing during the hours when traffic is heavy?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Three accidents are recorded by the police as having occurred in Vassall Road, resulting in injury to four persons, during the past six months. Two of these occurred at the junction of Vassall Road and Elliott Road. The Commissioner sees no justification for placing a police constable on permanent traffic duty at this spot.

Mr. HAYES: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider whether, if he cannot place a constable there, he can make arrangements to have a "Dangerous crossing" notice put up in the vicinity?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I will consider that.

Captain BRASS: Is the right hon. gentleman aware that in Long Acre—a single direction road—there is a constable on duty to prevent people going the wrong side?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I suppose that must be because a good many motorists go down Long Acre.

Oral Answers to Questions — INTERNATIONAL PRISON CONGRESS.

Mr. LANSBURY: 9.
asked the Home Secretary whether the invitations to attend the International Prison Congress, to be held on 3rd August, have been
issued by his Department; and whether any invitation has been sent asking the present Government of Bulgaria to appoint a delegate?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Invitations to foreign Governments to send representatives to the Congress were issued from the Foreign Office. An invitation was sent to the Bulgarian Government, and I understand it was accepted as long ago as February last.

Oral Answers to Questions — NIGHT CLUBS.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 10.
asked the Home Secretary whether he has made further investigations into the existence of bogus night clubs in London and other large cities; whether he is satisfied with his present powers for dealing with these bogus clubs; and, if not, whether he intends to seek further powers to deal with this evil?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I am continuing to keep a close watch on these clubs, but, as previously stated, it has been decided not to attempt legislation on the subject this Session.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the second part of my question? Is he satisfied with his present powers? Are they sufficient?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I shall be glad to give the House fuller information as to whether I am satisfied with my present powers when I have exercised them a little longer, but I am glad to say that I think the conditions of a good many of the night clubs are improving.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Has not the right hon. Gentleman had more experience since he first took office? Did he not say then that his powers were not sufficient? Has he altered his opinion?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: No, I do not say that I have altered my opinion. I say that since I have taken office I have given great attention to this matter, and had several consultations with the Commissioner of Police about night clubs. A large number of raids have been made and several of the clubs have been shut up, and I prefer to refrain from deciding whether my powers are adequate until I have had a little longer experience.

Captain GARRO-JONES: In view of the expense of preparing a Bill, are we not entitled to know why that Bill was dropped?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I think the expense was very slight.

Oral Answers to Questions — CORONER'S COURT, WEST SURREY (NON-ATTENDANCE FINE).

Viscount SANDON: 11.
asked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been called to the imposition of a 20s. fine by the Coroner of the West Surrey Court on the daughter of a man killed by lightning, for not appearing to identify the body; and whether he will remit the fines in such cases, in view of the fact that other responsible people, well acquainted with the deceased persons, could give the required identification?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I have received no representation in this case, and am not in a position to express any opinion on it.

Oral Answers to Questions — WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION (DOCK LABOURERS).

Viscount SANDON: 12.
asked the Home Secretary whether he has any statistics showing that dock labourers run special risks of disease by reason of handling foreign cargoes; and, if so, whether he will introduce legislation to bring such cases within the machinery of the Workmen's Compensation Act?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Statistics are published annually by my Department in the Workmen's Compensation Statistics, in respect of certain diseases, such as anthrax, which have already been scheduled under the Compensation Act as specific to the employment; but I take it my Noble Friend is referring not to these but to diseases of an ordinary character. If so, I have no statistics showing that dock workers run special risks, and the second part of the question does not, therefore, arise. I may, however, refer my Noble Friend to the Report of the Holman-Gregory Committee on the subject.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT.

OMNIBUS ROUTE RESTRICTIONS.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir FREDERICK HALL: 13.
asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that a number of small omnibus proprietors were convicted on a charge of having plied for hire on a route other than the one to which they were allocated under the recent traffic restrictions; and that, by the publication of a special concession in the "London Gazette" of the 19th June last, these men were permitted again to operate their vehicles on the actual route in respect of which they were prosecuted; whether the proprietor of an omnibus is held responsible for the action of his staff even if they should act contrary to his instructions; and can he see his way to issue instructions for the expurgation from the licences of the men concerned of the particulars of the offence for which they were prosecuted under the recent traffic restrictions?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: The facts are as stated in the first two parts of the question, except that the offence charged was failing to maintain a regular service in accordance with the deposited schedules. As regards the third part of the question, the person liable under Section 6 (9) of the London Traffic Act is the person to whom a licence for an omnibus has been granted. As regards the last part of the question, particulars of these offences are not endorsed on the men's licences.

Sir F. HALL: Then they will not be handicapped in consequence of what may have happened?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: No.

Mr. R. MORRISON: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think it is somewhat remarkable that all prosecutions under this Act up to the present have been against small omnibus proprietors, and that although complaints have been laid against the London General Omnibus Company no prosecution has taken place?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I really was not aware of that fact. If the hon. Member can give me any particulars of offences by the London General Omnibus Company, of course they will be subject to prosecution.

Mr. MORRISON: I will gladly do so.

TRAFFIC OBSTRUCTION, VAUXHALL BRIDGE ROAD.

Mr. COOPER RAWSON: 50.
asked the Minister of Transport whether his attention has been drawn to the building erected in the middle of Rochester Row at its junction with Vauxhall Bridge Road which hinders the free circulation of traffic and endangers passengers and vehicles; and whether he has referred, or will refer, to the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee, under the provisions of Section 10 of the London Traffic Act, 1924, the question of making Regulations controlling the erection, or placing, or the removal of any works or objects which hinder the circulation of traffic or endanger the public?

The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Colonel Ashley): My attention had not previously been drawn to the erection in question, but I am having inquiries made and will communicate the result to my hon. Friend as soon as possible. The whole question of making Regulations in this matter has already been referred by me to the Advisory Committee.

AGRICULATURAL PRODUCE, SOUTH LINCOLNSHIRE.

Mr. DEAN: 51.
asked the Minister of Transport whether he is aware that agricultural and horticultural produce from the Continent is receiving from the London and North Eastern Railway and the train ferry service a far better and more regular delivery than produce from South Lincolnshire and the Eastern Counties; whether he is aware that loss is being suffered by English growers owing to these delays; and whether he will inquire into the cause of the delays in transit on this line, and take immediate action with a view to a more efficient service being provided by the London and North Eastern Railway Company?

Colonel ASHLEY: I am not aware of the circumstances to which my hon. Friend refers, but, if he will furnish me with the particulars on which his complaint is based, I will consider them.

RIVER TAMAR (BRIDGE).

Major HORE-BELISHA: 49.
asked the Minister of Transport whether his Department has ever had before it any
proposition to build a bridge over the River Tamar; and what attitude the Ministry has adopted towards such proposition?

Colonel ASHLEY: Although I am aware that such a project has been advocated at various times, no proposals for its execution have been submitted to my Department by any responsible authorities.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT.

JUVENILE CENTRE, LIVERPOOL.

Mr. HAYES: 14.
asked the President of the Board of Education what decision has been arrived at with regard to the application from the Liverpool juvenile employment committee for the opening of a new centre capable of accommodating from 200 to 400 boys and girls?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. Betterton): I have been asked to reply. I have not yet received an application from the Liverpool education authority for approval of a, new juvenile unemployment centre.

Mr. HAYES: Will such an application, if it be put forward, receive sympathetic consideration?

Mr. BETTERTON: Oh, certainly it will. We always consider these applications most sympathetically. Of course, I cannot give any undertaking until I have seen the details, but we will certainly consider it.

EXCHANGE, SALKELD STREET, GLASGOW.

Mr. T. HENDERSON: 47.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware of the unsuitable nature of the Employment Exchange premises at Salkeld Street, Glasgow; that these premises are an old grain store, with very bad lavatory accommodation, heating, ventilation, and lighting; and that there are various premises near by which could be taken in substitution; and what steps he proposes to take, in the interests of the health of the staff, to provide more suitable accommodation?

Mr. BETTERTON: Yes, Sir. The Salkeld Street premises are purely temporary, and were taken pending the ac-
quisition of a permanent building for this Exchange. Negotiations for permanent premises are actively in hand.

JUTE WEAVERS, DUNDEE.

Mr. JOHNSTON: 48.
asked the Minister of Labour how many jute weavers are signing on at the Dundee Employment Exchange as unemployed; and what proportion of these workers are being paid unemployment benefit?

Mr. BETTERTON: Local inquiry has been necessary in connection with this question, and the information will be sent to the hon. Member when received.

Oral Answers to Questions — POOR LAW RELIEF, SOUTHWARK.

Colonel DAY: 15.
asked the Minister of Health if his attention has been drawn to the evidence given at a Southwark inquest on the 15th July held on Arthur Passey, an unemployed labourer, of 35, St. Gabriel Street, Southwark, who committed suicide, and whose widow and other witnesses made certain allegations against officials of the Southwark Board of Guardians in the matter of deceased's application for relief from the said board; and, in view of such allegations, will he cause a public inquiry to be held, in order that the statements made by the witnesses at the inquest may be fully inquired into?

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Mr. Neville Chamberlain): I have made inquiries into this case, and am informed by the guardians that it is not the fact that this applicant was refused relief on any occasion by them; I have no evidence to suggest that there is any cause for complaint of the manner in which he was treated by them, and would point out that the Coroner expressed the view that the relieving officer had done all he could for the family. I do not consider that it is necessary to hold a public inquiry.

Colonel DAY: Is it not a fact that a relieving officer is bound to give a man relief when starving, and that this man was refused relief for himself and his children by the relieving officer?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: My information is that the applicant was not refused relief on any occasion.

Mr. MAXTON: Is not even an allegation of this sort sufficient justification for a public inquiry? There is a public inquiry that has been attracting public attention regarding the alleged ill-treatment of an Army officer by the police?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I do not think so.

Mr. RAWSON: It depends where the allegation comes from.

Mr. MAXTON: Yes, that's it—it does depend where the allegation comes from.

Oral Answers to Questions — INFANT MORTALITY, SOUTHWARK (MILK SUPPLY).

Colonel DAY: 17.
asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that the report of the medical officer of health for the Borough of Southwark states that the infant mortality rate has increased from 68 per 1,000 in 1923, to 71 per 1,000 in 1924; that, during such period, there has been a large decline in the amount of milk given away to necessitous nursing mothers; and, in view of this fact, will he state whether the Southwark Borough Council have supplied free milk to the maximum value allowed by the Order of his Department?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: My attention has been drawn to this Report, but I would point out that, according to the Registrar-General's figures, the infant mortality rates for 1923 and 1924 were for Southwark 70 and 71, and for the whole of London 61 and 69, respectively. The small increase in Southwark does not, therefore, appear to call for any special or local explanation. At the same time I am informed that the reduction in the amount of free milk distributed by the borough council was due to a decrease in the number of eligible applicants, and not to any action of the borough council in reducing the supply below the limit authorised by my Department.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING.

WOODEN HOUSES.

Mr. LOUGHER: 20.
asked the Minister of Health whether he can give returns showing how many authorities are building wooden houses; and whether he has received reports as to cost, type and suitability?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I have no exact record showing the number of local authorities who are actually building wooden houses. In a case which has recently been before me the houses are of the non-parlour type, with three bedrooms, costing about £450, and I am advised that the form of construction is satisfactory. On the general question of the merits of timber construction I would refer my hon. Friend to the Third Interim Report of the Committee on New Methods of House Construction.

ASSISTED SCHEMES.

Mr. TREVELYAN THOMSON: 25.
asked the Minister of Health how many houses are in course of construction under assisted housing schemes, in accordance with the terms of the Housing Acts of 1923 and 1924, respectively, by private enterprise and local authorities?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: On 1st July the numbers of houses in course of construction under the Housing Act of 1923 were 11,214 by local authorities and 31,593 by private enterprise. The corresponding figures under the Act of 1924 were 19,196 and 227 respectively.

Mr. THOMSON: 26.
also asked the Minister of Health how many houses have actually been completed under assisted housing schemes, in accordance with the terms of the Housing Acts of 1923 and 1924, by private enterprise and by local authorities, respectively?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: On 1st July, the numbers of houses completed under the Housing Act of 1923 were 23,943 by local authorities and 65,484 by private enterprise. The corresponding figures under the Act of 1924 were 6,246 and 36, respectively.

Oral Answers to Questions — CHILD NEGLECT (CHESTERFIELD).

Colonel DAY: 21.
asked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been drawn to the case recently dealt with at Chesterfield Police Court, where a man and his wife were charged with neglecting their children, when it appeared that the family of seven lived in a shed that had previously been occupied by swine, there being no fireplace, chimney, ashpit, or drainage, for which they paid 3s. per week; and whether he will have the matter inquired into?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: My attention had not previously been drawn to this case, but I am having inquiries made.

Colonel DAY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the owner in this case was an overseer of the poor, and does he not think he ought to have been prosecuted?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I have said that I am having inquiries made.

Oral Answers to Questions — DAIRY HERDS (VETERINARY INSPECTION).

Mr. MacKENZIE LIVINGSTONE: 22.
asked the Minister of Health what local authorities in Scotland and England now carry out veterinary inspection of dairy herds?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: A few of the sanitary authorities in England and Wales systematically carry out veterinary inspections of dairy herds, and I believe that most sanitary authorities have made arrangements for obtaining the services of a veterinary surgeon for the inspection of cattle when occasion demands. So far as Scotland is concerned, the question should be addressed to my right hon. friend the Secretary for Scotland.

Oral Answers to Questions — CASUAL WARDS (TASKS).

Mr. R. RICHARDSON: 24.
asked the Minister of Health whether the Local Government Board or the Ministry of Health have ever interfered to prevent any task unsuited to his age, strength, or capacity being given to a casual, or ever exercised any disciplinary action over any officer who has given such a task; if so, when, where, and under what circumstances; and whether he will give to any casual, who considers the task imposed upon him to be unsuitable as aforesaid, or otherwise illegal, a right of appeal to the master of the workhouse?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the question put by him a fortnight ago. I regret that I am unable, without unduly extensive research, to give a more precise answer. As regards the last part of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. and gallant Member for Rhondda a fortnight ago.

Mr. RICHARDSON: May I ask the Minister of Health if his attention has been called to what has arisen at Nottingham on this very point?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir.

Mr. GRIFFITHS: 23.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that the tasks prescribed for the casual poor under the authority of Article 11 of the Casual Poor (Relief) Order, 1925, are posted in the casual wards without the proviso contained in that Article, that a casual shall be excused from the whole or any part of such task of work if it shall appear that the task is not suited to his age, strength or capacity; and whether he will circulate copies of the proviso, printed uniformly with the poster containing the list of prescribed tasks, to the guardians and others in charge of the casual wards and ask that they shall be posted below the tasks?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I do not think it is necessary to require guardians to post in the casual wards the proviso to which the hon. Member refers.

Oral Answers to Questions — FOOD PRESERVATIVES (DRAFT RULES).

Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: 27.
asked the Minister of Health what Amendments are proposed in the Draft Rules and Orders, Public Health, England (Preservatives, Etc., in Food) Regulations, 1925; and what arrangements will be made for the discussion of these Regulations?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I regret that I am not at present in a position to add anything to the reply which was given to the hon. Member on the 7th instant.

Oral Answers to Questions — NURSING HOMES REGISTRATION (SELECT COMMITTEE).

Mr. RAWSON: 28.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is in a position yet to state the constitution of the proposed Committee to inquire into the question of the registration of nursing homes; and whether the British Medical Association will be given an opportunity of giving evidence or an expression of their views?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: It is not proposed to set up the intended Select Committee to inquire into this question until after the Recess. It will rest with the Committee to decide what evidence it is desirable to hear, but they will no doubt consider the question of inviting evidence from the British Medical Association.

Oral Answers to Questions — COTTON RAGS (LACE DUTY).

Mr. DALTON: 30.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that a parcel of 39 bales of old cotton rags, consisting of cast-off men's and women's underwear, recently imported from Rotterdam for papermaking by Messrs. Alexander, Jacob and Company, of Peckham, was detained at St. Katherine's Dock on the ground that the bales contained lace; that the Board of Customs have only permitted the firm to take delivery on payment of a deposit of £20; that a small part of the rags, which were once women's underwear, was edged with what once was lace but is now rags; whether such rags come within the departmental definition of lace; and, if not, whether he will give instructions that the aforesaid deposit shall be immediately returned to Messrs. Alexander, Jacob and Company, and that such action shall not be repeated?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Guinness): I am informed that 39 bales of cotton rags were recently imported from Rotterdam. These bales contained a proportion of lace which was prima facie liable to duty on importation. As the case was represented to be urgent, the usual procedure was followed, and delivery was allowed on a deposit of £20 pending settlement of the question of liability to duty. The importers have now been informed in the sense that payment of duty will not be required provided that satisfactory evidence is produced to the Commissioners of Customs that the goods have in fact been used for paper making and that immediate return of the deposit can be obtained on security being given that the goods will be so used.

Mr. DALTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman issue instructions that in similar cases in future legitimate trade shall not be penalised in this way?

Mr. GUINNESS: Legitimate trade is not being penalised at all. It is the duty of the Customs authorities to see that dutiable parts cannot be extracted from such parcels, and the interests concerned are arranging for the setting up of a system under which deliveries shall be made under bond, and no duty will be incurred, provided the materials go straight into the pulping machine.

Mr. HARRIS: Is this not typical of many other cases, where many merchants have had goods delayed for many days?

Mr. GUINNESS: It certainly is not typical of delay, because the goods were immediately handed over.

Oral Answers to Questions — JAPANESE SUBMARINES AND CRUISERS (WAR SERVICE).

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: 31.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether during the War the Japanese submarines and cruisers which accompanied our troops and merchant vessels did so at the expense of the Japanese people or whether the British Government paid the expenses involved?

Mr. GUINNESS: The Japanese bore the cost, but certain Japanese light cruisers on the Mediterranean and South African stations assisting the British Forces there were supplied with fuel, stores and some fittings at British expense.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.

SERVICE DEPARTMENTS (PRESS COMMITTEE).

Captain WEDGWOOD BENN: 32.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury what duties are discharged by the Admiralty, War Office, Air Ministry, and Press Committee; who are the members of the Committee; what are the annual charges of the same; and on which Vote are these charges borne?

The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Sir Laming Worthington-Evans): I have been asked to reply. The Committee exists for the purpose of maintaining cooperation between the Service Departments and the Press to guard against the publication of items of news the disclosure of which might be prejudicial to the interests of the forces of the Crown.
Its members are the permanent heads of the three Service Departments and representatives of the London and provincial Press. The necessary arrangements with the Press are made through the Secretary of the Committee, who is nominated by the Press members, and is also a member of the Committee. The expenses are borne (on behalf of the three Service Departments) by the War Office. In the last two years these expenses have amounted to slightly over £50 a year.

Captain BENN: Do I understand that this Committee exercises some sort of censorship over the announcements which it is proposed to make in the Press?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Oh, no. It is not censorship at all.

Mr. HARRIS: Is it for propaganda purposes?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Not even for that.

MEN AND WOMEN (EQUAL PAY).

Major MacANDREW: 33.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury if or when it is intended to appoint a Committee of inquiry to report on the question of applying the principle of equal pay for men and women in the Civil Service?

Mr. GUINNESS: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply which I gave to the hon. and gallant Member for Hexham on the 15th July.

FOREIGN-MADE GOODS.

Mr. SMEDLEY CROOKE: 36.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury if he is aware that some Government Departments are still buying foreign-made goods; and whether he will insist that in future all Departments will obtain from all firms tendering a declaration that the goods are actually made in this country from British material?

Mr. GUINNESS: Government Departments make contracts within the limit of their own authority, without reference to the Treasury, but if my hon. Friend will give me particulars of the cases on which his question is based I will have inquiry made. There is, of course, considerable difficulty in practice in securing that manufactured products purchased from British firms in this country con-
tain nothing but British material, but I have no reason to doubt that Departments, in placing contracts, use every endeavour to secure the maximum of employment in this country.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE FACILITIES GUARANTEES.

BEARDMORE TAXI-CAB COMPANY, LIMITED.

Mr. RUNCIMAN: 34.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether consent has been given to an advance or a guarantee of £365,000 to William Beardmore and Company, Limited, under the Trade Facilities Act, to enable this company to construct and place on the streets of London and other places a number of new taxi-cabs; and how many cabs are to be provided out of this money?

Mr. GUINNESS: The Treasury have agreed to guarantee under the provisions of the Trade Facilities Acts a loan of £350,000 to be raised by the Beardmore Taxi-cab Company, Limited, to enable them to buy and place on the streets of London a number of new taxi-cabs which will be built by Beardmore (Paisley), Limited. The number of cabs that will be so provided is about 750.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Will these cabs replace existing cabs or be in addition to them; and is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many of the owner-drivers at the present time have great difficulty in making their cabs pay owing to the number on the streets?

Mr. GUINNESS: I am advised that these cabs, generally speaking, will be in place of obsolete cabs. The normal wastage is estimated at about 500 cabs a year, which is the rate of supply under the proposed arrangement.

Major CRAWFURD: For what period is this advance being made?

Mr. GUINNESS: I should like notice of that question.

Mr. RUNCIMAN: Was the Treasury satisfied that there was really a demand for this excessive number of cabs, and that they could not be provided by the existing cab companies?

Mr. GUINNESS: I am advised that there is this demand in order to replace the wastage. The Trade Facilities Committee were satisfied that the only alternative to this arrangement was that the order would go to French, Italian and American firms.

Sir F. HALL: May I ask whether any assistance is likely to be given to the men who are called owner-drivers? Will they have any assistance granted them to enable them to procure their cabs to run on the London streets?

Mr. WALLHEAD: Are the Trade Facilities Committee assisting Messrs. W. Beardmore and Co. to set up a huge combine against the owner-drivers with the aid of public money?

Mr. BRIGGS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these guarantees are not merely as to capital but also as to interest, and does he consider that what is practically a guarantee of dividend is an inducement to this firm to put forward their best efforts?

Mr. GUINNESS: The conditions of the guarantee satisfied the eminent business men on the Trade Facilities Committee.

Sir F. HALL: Will the right hon. Gentleman reply to my question?

Mr. WALLHEAD: Are these business men shareholders in Messrs. William Beardmore and Company?

BLUE STAR LINE.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 35.
asked the Secretary to the Treasury whether consent has been given to a British Government guarantee being granted under the Trade Facilities Act for £2,500,000 for the Blue Star Line, Limited, an ally and off-shoot of the Union Cold Storage Company, Limited, and of Messrs. Vestey, Brothers, for the construction of steamships with refrigerated cargo space for the carriage of meat owned by the Union Cold Storage Company or one of Messrs. Vestey's concerns; whether the Treasury has been satisfied that the Union Cold Storage Company, or Messrs. Vestey, or the Blue Star Line are unable to raise £2,500,000 on their own credit without Government guarantee; and whether the Blue Star Line would have been unable to give orders for the construction of these
vessels at the present time without the assistance of a British Government guarantee?

Mr. GUINNESS: Subject to the reservation that the meat carried is not necessarily owned by the Union Cold Storage Company or any concern of Messrs. Vestey, the answer to all parts of the question is in the affirmative.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that evidence was given before the Food Commission showing that the formation of a vertical trust in the meat trade is in process, and is this not assisting such a formation at the public expense?

Mr. GUINNESS: Our object is to provide work in this country.

Commander BELLAIRS: Is there a stipulation that British material shall be used, and is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in other instances under the Trade Facilities Act British material has not been used?

Mr. GUINNESS: If the hon. and gallant Member will give me any details of such cases, I shall be glad to look into them, but, as he is aware, precautions are taken as far as possible to see that orders are placed to their fullest possible extent for British materials.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: May I press for an answer to the last part of the question?

Mr. ALEXANDER: Is this issue identical with an issue that was offered to the public and under-subscribed?

Mr. GUINNESS: I do not know the details of the issue made to the public, but the Trade Facilities Committee were satisfied that it would not have been possible to put this transaction through without the Government guarantee; therefore, as I have said, the answer to the last part of the question is in the affirmative.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir JOSEPH NALL: May I ask—

Mr. SPEAKER: We are going very slowly to-day.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL AIR FORCE.

CRANWELL COLLEGE.

Mr. BASIL PETO: 39.
asked the Secretary of State for Air how many cadets are in training at Cranwell and the total personnel at the college?

The SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Lieut.-Colonel Sir Samuel Hoare): The answer, according to the strength returns of the cadet college for 30th June last, is 109 cadets and 320 Air Force officers and airmen. As regards the latter figure, I would remind my hon. Friend that the equivalent of approximately two squadrons, with an establishment of 36 machines, are maintained at this station for flying instructional duties, and that the personnel of these units are included in the above. There are also 62 civilians employed as instructors and civilian subordinates at the cadet college.

HALTON TECHNICAL SCHOOL.

Mr. PETO: 40.
also asked the Secretary of State for Air how many boys are under training at the technical school at Halton and the total personnel at the school?

Sir S. HOARE: The latest strength return for Halton shows 1,843 apprentices under training, and 429 Air Force officers and airmen and 88 civilians employed in the Boys' Sections, but, as explained in my reply to my hon. Friend, the Member for Reading (Mr. H. Williams) on 25th February last, it is difficult to distinguish between the School staff proper and the personnel of the station as a whole, which includes other establishments than the school.

Mr. PETO: Although it may be impossible to distinguish between the personnel of the schools and the staffs proper, is it not a fair conclusion to draw, from the right hon. Gentleman's answer, that in the one case over two members, and in the other case one-half of one member, of the personnel, is required to teach one cadet or one boy?

Sir H. HOARE: I do not think that that would be a fair conclusion to draw from my answer. If I can give any further details to satisfy my hon. Friend on this point, I shall be very glad to do so.

Sir FREDRIC WISE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the cadets at Cranwell will be transferred to Halton?

Sir S. HOARE: I should require notice of that question.

PILOTS AND OBSERVERS.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 41.
asked the Secretary of State for Air how many fully qualified pilots and observers, respectively, are in the service of the Royal Air Force and stationed in Great Britain at the present time?

Sir S. HOARE: The numbers of qualified pilots and observers of the General Duties Branch of the Royal Air Force stationed in Great Britain as at 30th June last were 1,457 and 32, respectively.

Captain BRASS: Is it not a fact that a large number of these pilots are also observers?

Sir S. HOARE: Yes, Sir, that certainly would be so. The general policy of the Air Ministry is to reduce so far as possible the number of observers.

RESERVISTS (PAY).

Mr. CHARLES EDWARDS (for Mr. W. BAKER): 38.
asked the Secretary of State for Air whether it is proposed to reduce the pay of reservists who may be called up for duty in future?

Sir S. HOARE: The matter is under consideration in connection with the proposal for the general revision of the pay of airmen.

Oral Answers to Questions — INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANISATION.

Colonel WOODCOCK: 44.
asked the Minister of Labour whether any effect has been given to the unanimous resolution of the Conference of the International Labour Organisation, Washington, 1919, that an advisory committee, on which the Governments, the employers, and the workers shall all be represented, shall be appointed without delay to keep in touch with the work of the Health Section of the International Labour Organisation?

Mr. BETTERTON: So far as I have been able to ascertain up to the present,
the only committee appointed, as a result of the Washington resolution, to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers, is the Correspondence Committee on Industrial Hygiene. That committee, however, consists of experts, and not, as laid down by the Washington resolution, of representatives of Governments, employers, and workers.

Colonel WOODCOCK: Can the hon. Gentleman explain why it is that this definite instruction has not been carried out during the preceding six years? Does not that show that these unanimous resolutions passed by the organisation are simply pious hopes?

Mr. BETTERTON: I cannot answer the first part of my hon. and gallant Friend's supplementary question. With regard to the latter part, he must draw his own conclusions.

Colonel WOODCOCK: 46.
asked the Minister of Labour whether a comprehensive encyclopædia of industrial hygiene is being prepared by the International Labour Office; whether he can furnish the House with a list of the experts in industrial hygiene chosen as expert collaborators for such work, and the proportion of British experts in such list: whether these expert collaborators are nominated by the governing body or by the officials of the International Labour Office; and whether the Director of the International Labour Office claims the right to consult in the preparation of this encyclopædia such of the expert collaborators as he thinks fit, and without reference to the governing body?

Mr. BETTERTON: As the answer is necessarily long, I will, with my hon. and gallant Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

The answer to the first and last parts of this question is in the affirmative. A list is given below of the experts who are understood to have been collaborating with the International Labour Office up to the present in the preparation of the encyclopædia. Of the 66 experts, four are British. As regards the third part of the question, some of the experts are members of the Correspondence Committee on Industrial Hygiene of the International
Labour Office. The approval of the governing body is obtained before experts are added to this Committee. As far as I am aware, the remaining expert collaborators have been selected by the Director of the International Labour Office.

LIST of the EXPERTS who are collaborating with the International Labour Office in the preparation of the Encyclopædia of Hygiene, Pathology and Social Welfare.

(Members of the Correspondence Committee on Industrial Hygiene are indicated by an asterisk (*).)

Agasse-Lafont, Dr., Head of the Department of Pathology, Professor at the Institute of Industrial Hygiene, Faculty of Medicine, Paris.
Allevi, G., Lecturer in industrial pathology, University of Milan.
Balthazard, V., Professor of Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Paris. Member of the Academy of Medicine.
Bayet, Dr., Professor of the Free University of Brussels.
*Biondi, C., Director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine, University of Sienna.
*Boulin, P., Divisional Factory Inspector, Lille.
*Brezina, E., Professor of the Polytechnic School, Vienna.
*Chajes, B., Lecturer at the Charlotten-burg Polytechnic School, Berlin.
Clark, J., Director of the Medical Department of the Norton Company, Worcester (Mass.).
*Collis, Edgar L., Talbot Professor of Preventive Medicine, University of Wales.
*Cristiani, H., Director of the Institute of Hygiene, University of Geneva.
Dearden, W. F., Certifying Surgeon, Secretary of the Association of Certifying Factory Surgeons, Manchester.
Devoto, L., Director of the Clinic for Occupational Diseases, University of Milan.
Engel, Dr., of the Federal Public Health Office, Germany.
Ferrannini, L., Director of the Clinic for Occupational Diseases, University of Naples.
618
Fischer, Dr., President of the Council of the Federal Insurance Office, Germany.
Frey, Dr., Director in the Federal Public Health Office, Germany.
Frois, M., Factory Inspector, Paris.
Fuss, Mme., Doctor of Medicine.
Gaster, L., Secretary of the Illuminating Engineering Society of Great Britain, London.
Giovanni, De J., Director of the Medical Department of the Sicilian Sulphur Mines Consortium, Caltanissetta.
*Glibert, D., Chief Inspector, Ministry of Industry, Labour and Social Welfare, Brussels.
*Hamilton, Alice, Assistant Professor of Industrial Medicine, Harvard Medical School, United States.
Hayhurst, Emery R., Profeseor of Hygiene, Ohio State University, Columbus.
*Heim, F., Director of the Institute of Industrial Hygiene, Faculty of Medicine, Paris.
Heyermans, L., Director of the Health Department of the City of Amsterdam.
Hoffmann, Dr., Statistician, Prudential Insurance Company, New York.
Holtzmann, Prof., Medical Inspector, Carlsruhe, Baden.
Jellinek, S., Director of the Electro-pathological Museum, Institute of Forensic Medicine, University of Vienna.
Kober, G., Professor of Hygiene, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
*Koelsch, F., Medical Inspector of Factories, Bavaria; Lecturer at the University of Munich.
Kohn-Abrest, E., Director of the Toxicological Laboratories of the Prefecture of Police, Paris.
*Kranenburg, Dr., Medical Adviser to the General Labour Department, The Hague.
Krantz, Dr., Ministerial Councillor, Dresden.
*Legge, Sir Thomas, Senior Medical Inspector of Factories, Home Office, London.
Lehmann, H. K., Director of the Institute of Hygiene, University of Wurzburg.
*Lorange, O., Director of the Factory Inspectorate, Oslo.
619
*Loriga, G., Chief Medical Inspector of Factories, Ministry of National Economy, Rome.
Malvoz, Dr., Director of the Provincial Institute of Bacteriology, Liege.
Martin, E., Professor of Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Lyons.
*Massarelli, F., Engineer, Director of the Association of Italian Manufacturers for the Prevention of Accidents, Milan.
Mori, A., Lecturer in Industrial Pathology, Director of the Piombino Hospital, Italy.
Oblath, O., Lecturer in Ophthalmology, Trieste.
Ottolenghi, D., Director of the Institute of Hygiene, University of Bologna.
Perussia, F., Professor of Roentgenology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Milan.
Pittaluca, G., Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Madrid.
Preti, L., Assistant Professor, Clinic for Occupational Diseases, University of Milan.
Price, G. M., Director of the Joint Board of Sanitary Control in the Ladies' Garment Industries, New York.
Ranelletti, A., Lecturer in Industrial Pathology; formerly Medical Inspector of Factories, Municipality of Rome.
Rasch, H., Director of the Factory Inspectorate, Hamburg.
Rubino, C., Lecturer in Industrial Pathology, Assistant Professor in the Institute of Pathological Medicine, University of Genoa.
Sand, R., Secretary-General of the League of Red Cross Societies, Paris.
Sayers, Dr., Chief Surgeon, Bureau of Mines, U.S. Public Health Service, Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C.
Schmidt, P., Director of the Medical Clinic, University of Halle, Germany.
Sclavo, A., Director of the Institute of Hygiene, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sienna.
Silberschmidt, Dr., Director of the Institute of Hygiene, Faculty of Medicine, University of Zurich.
Teleky, Prof., District Industrial Medical Officer, Dusseldorf.
620
Thiele, Prof., District Industrial Medical Officer, Dresden.
Thompson, Gilman, New York.
Wade Wright, Dr., New York.
Wenzel, Industrial Councillor, Berlin.
Weisweiller, L., General Secretary of the International Union for Combating Venereal Disease.
*Winslow, C., Professor of Public Health, Yale School of Medicine, United States.
*Wirgin, Dr., Professor of Hygiene and Bacteriology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Upsala, Sweden.
Zangger, H., Director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine, University of Zurich.
*Zielinski, Dr. J., of the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, Warsaw.

Colonel WOODCOCK: Does not the hon. Gentleman think that books of this sort should be under the management of the governing body, and not of the officials?

Mr. BETTERTON: I think that perhaps my hon. and gallant Friend had better wait and see my answer. I am not prepared to accept his statement as accurate.

Oral Answers to Questions — WAR CEMETERIES.

Mr. CADOGAN: 45.
asked the Prime Minister whether it is the intention of the Government to give effect to the recommendation of the Imperial War Graves Commission, and to provide a contribution towards an endowment fund for the maintenance of War cemeteries?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I have been asked to reply. It is the intention of the Government, in conjunction with the Dominion Governments, to set up an endowment fund of £5,000,000 for the maintenance of War cemeteries. It is proposed to ask this House to vote £50,000 as the contribution of the United Kingdom for this purpose in respect of the current year, and further sums annually, increasing as the cost of the construction work diminishes, until the capital sum reaches the British share of the total amount required for the permanent maintenance of these War graves. An opportunity for discussing this proposal will arise on the Supplementary Estimate.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

BRITISH EXPORTS.

Sir F. WISE: 54.
asked the President of the Board of Trade the percentage of British exports to the Dominions, Colonies and foreign countries for the six months ending 30th June, 1925?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Sir Burton Chadwick): The distribution of the exports of Great Britain and Northern Ireland during the six months ended 30th June, 1925, was as follow:



Per cent.


Consigned to the Dominions and Colonies
42.6


Consigned to foreign countries
57.4

CONTINENTAL GOODS (MARKING).

Mr. CROOKE: 56.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that some of our manufacturers are buying Continental goods, stamping their own name on them, and then offering such goods for sale ostensibly as British manufacture; and whether he will have investigation made into the extent of this practice?

Sir B. CHADWICK: I have no definite information to the effect indicated by my hon. Friend. If, however, he will send me evidence of such a practice having been followed in any particular case, I shall be glad to consider what action can be taken.

Mr. H. WILLIAMS: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that some manufacturers cast the names of English towns on their machines, indicating that they are made in England, although in fact they are made abroad?

Sir B. CHADWICK: If a manufacturer puts a wrong mark on any article, he is liable to prosecution.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I have frequently represented these facts to the Board of Trade, but that it has been utterly impossible up to now to obtain a prosecution?

Sir B. CHADWICK: If my hon. Friend will bring specific cases to my notice, they will certainly be looked into.

Mr. DENNIS HERBERT: Have any steps been taken to prevent these
wrongly marked goods from being brought into this country, in view of the fact that we cannot very well prosecute a German in Germany?

Mr. SPEAKER: This question is on another subject altogether. This is a case of our own manufacturers stamping goods which they have imported. The other matter must be the subject of a separate question.

Mr. WALLHEAD: Does not this indicate the unscrupulous character of private enterprise?

VULCANISED FIBRE (IMPORTATION).

Mr. LIVINGSTONE: 57.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can state the quantity of vulcanised fibre imported into Great Britain from the United States of America for the six months ending June last?

Sir B. CHADWICK: As the imports of vulcanised fibre are not separately recorded, I regret that it is impossible to furnish the particulars asked for.

Oral Answers to Questions — FOOD COUNCIL.

Mr. BARNES: 55.
asked the President of the Board of Trade what emoluments, if any, are to be paid to the chairman and members of the Food Council?

Sir B. CHADWICK: No emoluments will be paid.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURAL WAGES.

Mr. ALEXANDER: 37.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he can now give an up-to-date list of the decisions arrived at by the county committees established under the Agricultural Wages Act, 1924?

Major Sir HARRY BARNSTON (Comptroller of the Household): I have been asked to reply. My right hon. Friend is circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT a statement giving the current minimum rates of wages for adult workers for each area, as decided by the agricultural wages committees.

Following is the statement:

STATEMENT SHEWING MINIMUM RATES OF WAGES FOR ADULT AGRICULTURAL WORKERS OPERATING ON 29TH JULY, 1925.


Area.
Males.
Females.
Special Provision for Harvest (if any).


Ordinary Workers.
Special Classes Rates (if any).


Wages.
Hours.
Class of Workers,
Wages.
Hours.
Wages.
Hours.



s.
d.




Per hour.




Beds and Hunts
30
6
50
—
—
—
6d.
All time
—


Berkshire
29
2
50
—
—
—
5d.
All time
—


Buckinghamshire
30
0
50
—
—
—
6d.
All time
—


Cambs and Isle of Ely
30
0
51
Horsemen, Cowmen and Shepherds.
37s.
Customary
5½d.
8 per day
60s. per week of 64 hours for adult male workers and lid. per hour for all time worked for female workers of 18 years and over.


Cheshire
35
0
54
—
—
—
6d.
All time
—


Cornwall
31
0
51
—
—
—
5d.
All time
—


Cumberland and Westmorland.
32
6
54
Workers hired on yearly or half-yearly engagements.
38s.
Customary (62).
5½d.
All time
—






Casual workers
8d. per hour
All time





Derby
8d. per hour.
54 (Guaranteed).
—
—
—
5d.
All time on weekdays.
9d. per hour for all overtime employment on the Hay and Corn Harvest, 1925.


Devon
32
6
52
—
—
—
5d.
All time
10d. per hour for all overtime employment on the Hay and Corn Harvests, 1925.


Dorset
30
0
51
—
—
—
5d.
51hours
l0d. per hour for all overtime employment on the Hay and Corn Harvests, 1925.


Durham
32
0
50
Horsemen:











Householders
32s. plus 7s. per week.*
50
2s. per day.
8
—






Not Householders
32s. plus 3s. 6d.per week.*
50









Receiving Board and Lodging.
32s.
50









Stockmen and Shepherds:

Householders
43s.
Customary









Not Householders
37s. 10½d.
Customary









Receiving Board and Lodging.
36s.
Customary





Essex
30
0
50
—
—
—
Per hour 5d.
50
Male workers employed throughout the Corn Harvest on farms comprising more than 60 acres of corn to be paid the ordinary minimum weekly rates plus a bonus on completion of the Harvest, which in the case of a worker aged 21 years and over is £5 5s. In the case of male workers on such farms not employed fully on Harvest only a proportionate part of the bonus is payable. On farms comprising 60 acres or less of corn male workers are to be paid at special hourly rates for all employment on Harvest, the rate in the case of workers aged 21 years and over being 10id. per hour. Female workers 7½d. per hour for all time.


Gloucester
30
0
50
Head Shepherds and Stockmen.
36s.
60
5d.
All time
—






Under Shepherds and Stockmen.
34s. 6d.
57









Head Carters
34s. 6d.
58









Under Carters
32s. 6d.
54





Hants and Isle of Wight.
30
0
51
—
—
—
5d.
All time.
9d. per hour for all overtime employment on the Corn Harvest, 1925.


Herefordshire
31
0
54
Bailiffs, Waggoners, Stockmen and Shepherds.
36s.
60
4½d.
All time
—


Hertfordshire
31
0
48
—
—
—
24s. per week.
48
10d. per hour for all overtime employment of adult male workers and 7½d. per hour for adult female I workers employed on the Hay Harvest, 1925. 10½d. per hour for all employment of adult male workers and 7½d. per hour for adult female workers employed on the Corn Harvest, 1925.

Area.
Males.
Females.
Special Provision for Harvest (if any).


Ordinary workers.
Special Classes Rates (if any).


Wages.
Hours.
Class of Workers.
Wages.
Hours.
Wages.
Hours.



s.
d.




Per hour.




Kent
32
6
52
Horsemen, Stockmen and Shepherds.
33s. plus 8d. per hour for all employment on customary duties up to 60 hours.
52
5½d.
8 per day
—


Lancashire—


Eastern Area
42
0
60
—
—
—
6d.
All time.
—


Southern Area
33
6
50
Stockmen and Teams-men.
37s.
52½


Northern Area
37
6
60
Stockmen and Teams-men.
40s.
60


Leicester and Rut-land—


Leicester
34
0
54
—
—
—
5d.
All time on week-days.
—


Rutland
32
6


Lincolnshire—


Holland District
36
0
52
Cattlemen
36s. plus 5s. per week.*
52
6d.
All time
—






Shepherds†
36s. plus 5s. per week.*
52









Horsemen
36s. plus 10s. per week.*
52





Lincolnshire—


Kesteven and Lindsey District.
32
0
52
Waggoners
32s. plus 7s. per week.*
52
5½d.
All time
—






Shepherds†
32s. plus 5s. per week.*
52









Stockmen
32s. plus 6s. per week.*
52





Middlesex
34
4½
50
—
—
—
25s. per week.
50
—






Stockmen
41s. 3d.
60
30s. per week.
60

Carters
38s. 6d.
56
28s. per week.
56
—






Casual workers
8¼d. per hour
All time
6d.
All time



Monmouthshire
32
0
50
—
—
—
6d.
All time
—


Norfolk
29
0
50
Teamsmen, Cowmen and Shepherds.
29s. plus 5s. 6d. per week.*
50
5d.
50
Male workers employed on the full Corn Harvest, 1925, to receive an inclusive wage to cover the Harvest month, the amount in the case of male workers of 21 years and over being £12. Workers who do not work the full Harvest to be paid the ordinary minimum rate with overtime payment at a special rate, the rate in the case of male workers of 21 years and over being 9½d. per hour.






Sheep tenders and Bullock tenders.
29s. plus 4s. 6d. per week.*
50





Northants and Soke of Peterborough.
30
0
50
—
—
—
6d.
All time
—


Northumberland
34
0
52½
Horsemen, Cattle-men, Stockmen and Shepherds:


5d.
52½
—






Householders
41s.
62









Not House-holders.
38s.
62









Casual Workers
7½d. per hour.
All time
3d.
52½
—


Nottinghamshire
32
0
50
—
—
—
5d.
All weekday employment.
—


Oxfordshire
30
0
50
—
—
—
6d.
All time
—


Shropshire
31
6
54
—
—
—
5d.
All weekday employment.
All employment after 1 p.m. on any employment. one weekday in each week, all employment on Sunday and all employment after 6 p.m. on any | other day on the Hay and Corn i harvests to be paid at not less than 10d. per hour.


Somerset
32
0
52
—
—
—
6d.
—
—

Area.
Males.
Females.
Special Provision for Harvest (if any).


Ordinary workers.
Special Classes Rates (if any).


Wages.
Hours.
Class of Workers.
Wages.
Hours.
Wages.
Hours.




s.
d.




Per hour.




Staffordshire
…
31
6
54
—
—
—
5d.
54
—


Suffolk
…
7d. per hour.
50
Horsemen, Stock and Shepherds.
7d. per hour plus 6s. per week.
50 Guaranteed.
5d.
All time
Male workers employed throughout the Harvest on harvest work to be paid, in addition to the ordinary weekly minimum rate, a bonus on the completion of harvest, the amount in the case of male workers of 21 years and over being £6 3s. 4d. Provision is also made for the payment of a proportion of the bonus to workers employed on only part of the harvest.


Surrey
…
32
3
50
Stockmen, Shepherds and Horsemen.
38s.8d.
60
5½d.
50
—







Casual Workers.
7¾d. per hour
All time
—
—
—


Sussex
…
30
0
52
Horsemen, Cowmen, Shepherds and Stockmen.
35s.
58
5d.
52
—


Warwickshire
…
 30
0
50
—
—
—
5½d.
50
—


Wiltshire
…
30
0
50
—
—
—
5d.
All time
—


Worcestershire
…
30
0
53
—
—
—
4½d.
8 hour day
—


Yorks, E. Riding
…
34
0
52½
Foremen
32s.
52½ hours and in addition 12 hours per week on weekdays and 3 hours on Sundays in attention to stock.
5d.
44
Special overtime rates for all over time employment on the Corn Harvest, 1925, the rate in the case of adult male workers being 1s.3d. where not Boarded an Lodged and 1s. where receiving Board and Lodging (Foremen, Beastmen, Shepherds and Waggoners). The rate for adult female workers is 11d. per hour.







Beastmen and Shepherds.
29s.









Waggoners
28s.










Plus Board and Lodging in each case.

Yorks, N. Riding
33
0
52½
Workers receiving Board and Lodging.
4d. per hour for all overtime occupied by care of stock.
—
6d.
44
—






Workers not receiving Board and Lodging.
8d. per hour ditto.






Yorks, W. Riding
36
0
52½
Foremen, per annum Beastmen and Shepherds, per annum.
£85 16s.£83 4s.
52½ hours and in addition 12 hours per week on weekdays and 3 hours on Sundays in attention to stock.
5d
44
—






Waggoners, per annum.
£78 Plus Board and Lodging in each case.









Horsemen, Beast men and Shepherds (not living in).
£42





Anglesey and Carnarvon.
30
0
50
Horsemen, Cowmen, Shepherds and Bailiffs.
35s.
58
6d.
All time
—


Carmarthenshire
30
0
54
—
—
—
5d.
8 hour day
—


Denbigh and Flint
30
6
50
Teamsmen, Cattlemen, Cowmen, Shepherds and Bailiffs.
37s
61
5d.
8½ hour day
—


Glamorganshire
37
6
53
Stockmen, Cattlemen, Cowmen, Horsemen, Shepherds and Bailiffs.
40s.
60
6d.
8½ hour day
—


Merioneth and Montgomery.
31
6
54
Stockmen, Teamsters, Carters and shepherds.
34s. 6d.
60
5d.
All time
—


Pembroke and Cardigan.
30
0
54
—
—
—
5d.
 8 hour day
—


Radnor and Brecon
31
0
54
—
—
—
5d.
48
—


* Additional sums to cover time occupied by attention to stock.


† Additional sums to be paid during the lambing season according to the size of flocks.

Oral Answers to Questions — POST OFFICE SAVINGS BANK.

Colonel WOODCOCK: 59.
asked the Postmaster-General what is the estimated cost of each transaction in the Post Office savings bank as compared with the figure of 4¾d. stated by the Postmaster-General on 3rd November, 1911?

The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Viscount Wolmer): The estimated cost of each transaction, for the year 1924 was 9.01d., as compared with the 4¾d. mentioned for 1911. The figure has been steadily falling since 1921. I may mention that the expenses of management amounted in 1924 to 9s. 3d. per £100 of the total amount standing to the credit of depositors, as compared with 7s. 2d. in 1911.

Colonel WOODCOCK: Is that 9d. each way?

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND.

AFFORESTATION, OBAN.

Mr. JOHNSTON: 65.
asked the hon. Member for Monmouth, as representing the Forestry Commissioners, whether the purchase and afforestation of two estates in the neighbourhood of Oban is contemplated; whether he is aware that the lands in question are at present farmed and producing an average daily supply of 100 gallons of milk; and what steps are to be taken to ensure that the development of afforestation is not made in competition with but in supplement to agriculture?

Sir LEOLIN FORESTIER-WALKER (for the Forestry Commissioners): A technical inspection and report has been made on behalf of the Forestry Commissioners of two estates in the neighbourhood of Oban, but negotiations for purchase have not been entered into. The Commissioners are aware of the present utilisation of these estates. With regard to the latter part of the question, the Commissioners consult with the Board of Agriculture for Scotland before any decision as to acquisition of land is reached.

Mr. JOHNSTON: Is it the policy of the Forestry Commissioners to afforest land which is presently yielding a milk supply for the people?

Sir L. FORESTIER-WALKER: The policy of the Forestry Commission is to make use of such land for afforestation in consultation with the Board of Agriculture, who will be presumed to know what will be the best use to make of that particular land.

Mr. JOHNSTON: If the facts are as stated in the question, that this particular land is yielding 100 gallons of milk, is not that land put to an agricultural purpose?

Sir L. FORESTIER-WALKER: No doubt that fact is taken duly into account when consideration is given to the matter.

OMNIBUS DRIVER SENTENCED (GLASGOW).

Mr. JOHNSTON: 64.
asked the Secretary for Scotland whether he is aware that a young lad, William M'Arthur, Waterside, Kirkintilloch, has been sentenced at the Glasgow Sheriff Court to 60 days' imprisonment for reckless driving of a motor omnibus; that this was his first offence; that no accident took place; and whether he will consider the desirability of a reduction of the sentence to a fine and endorsement of licence?

The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Sir John Gilmour): My attention has been called to this case. I am making inquiry into the matter. I shall communicate with the hon. Member thereafter.

IRISH PRISONERS, PETERHEAD.

Mr. SCURR (for Mr. LANSBURY): 63.
asked the Secretary for Scotland whether he is aware that Felix O'Byrne and Soumas O'Reilly, at present imprisoned in Peterhead Prison, went on hunger strike on the 28th June; that other prisoners, including Thomas McShea and Seumas Monaghan, have been on hunger strike in sympathy with these men; will he inform the House whether any of these prisoners have been forcibly fed; what is the present state of their health; and will he state the number of prisoners still detained in Peterhead Prison, or any other Scottish prison, for and on behalf of either the Northern Government of Ireland or the Free State Government?

Sir J. GILMOUR: O'Byrne and Reilly went on hunger strike on the 27th June, Monaghan on the 29th June, and McShea on the 1st July. These prisoners were forcibly fed from and after various dates in July. All four ceased their hunger
strike on the 24th July, and are at present taking food. Their health is reported to be good, and they are expected to be back at work in a few days. Thirty-three prisoners are at present detained in Scottish prisons on behalf of the Government of Northern Ireland and none on behalf of the Irish Free State Government.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these 33 prisoners are being treated differently from any other prisoners in Scotland; and will he take steps to see that at least in regard to visitation they are made equal to other prisoners in Scotland?

Mr. BOOTHBY: Is it a fact that the Government of Northern Ireland do not possess a convict prison?

Sir J. GILMOUR: I understand that the accommodation in Northern Ireland is not sufficient. I do not think that the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) is correct when he states that these prisoners are differently treated from other prisoners.

Captain BENN: Is it not a fact that the Free State Government have already amnestied their political prisoners, and will he ask the Government of Northern Ireland whether they will do the same?

Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise out of this question.

Oral Answers to Questions — COLUMBIAN NORTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY.

Sir F. WISE: 71.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been called to the treatment by the Columbian Government of the Columbian Northern Railway Company; and if he will make a statement as to the action which His Majesty's Government has taken, or is prepared to take, in the matter?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Ronald McNeill): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The Columbian Northern Railway Company took over the line in 1898, and have been effectively working it since 1905. In 1921 proceedings were commenced in the Columbian Courts calling in question certain of the concessions granted to them by previous Governments. The question
was still sub judice when on the 4th May, 1925, a Presidential "resolution" was issued, without warning, cancelling the company's rights and declaring that Government officials must be given possession of the railway within 30 days. His Majesty's Minister at Bogota was instructed to protest to the Columbian Government, who nevertheless appear to have persisted in their decision, since on the 10th June last a further Presidential resolution was issued confirming the previous one, and again ordering the surrender of the railway within 30 days. The railway was in effect taken over on the 14th of July.

Oral Answers to Questions — COMMERCIAL TREATIES.

Colonel GRETTON: 72.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what is the present position with regard to the commercial treaties with our Allies which were in operation before the War; whether any of those treaties have been denounced by any of the countries concerned; and what steps are being taken to introduce order and regularity into our international relations in this respect?

Mr. McNEILL: The Anglo-French Convention of Commerce has been denounced by the French Government, but is being continued in force subject to three months' final notice of termination. This convention does not apply to Customs tariffs, and goods of United Kingdom origin or manufacture are granted most-favoured-nation treatment in France.
The Anglo-Greek Treaty of Commerce has been denounced by the Greek Government and will expire at the end of this year. Negotiations for a new treaty are taking place and the British proposals are now before the Greek Government.
The Anglo-Roumanian Treaty of Commerce has been denounced by the Roumanian Government, and commercial relations between the United Kingdom and Roumania are now regulated by a provisional arrangement based on the most-favoured-nation clause.
The Jugo-Slavian Government have denounced the Anglo-Serbian Treaty of Commerce, which will expire in June, 1926. The question of concluding a new treaty is under consideration.
Article 8 of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Commerce and the schedule to that
treaty have been denounced by the Japanese Government. The rest of the treaty, including the provisions as to reciprocal most-favoured-nation treatment of goods, remains in force and negotiations have been taking place for a supplementary convention between Great-Britain and Japan.

Colonel GRETTON: Has notice to terminate any commercial treaties been given by the British Government, and does such notice still stand?

Mr. McNEILL: So far as my recollection serves, none.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH LEGATION, PEKING.

Mr. LOOKER: 75.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is aware that, shortly after the recent disturbances occurred in Peking, the Soviet envoy to the Chinese Government caused loopholes to be made in the wall dividing the British and Russian Legation quarters; and whether he will take the steps necessary to safeguard the British Legation in view of the serious menace, in certain contingencies, to its security owing to this having taken place?

Mr. McNEILL: No official report of this nature has reached me. But it may be safely assumed that His Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires at Peking has taken all possible steps to assure the safety of the British Legation.

Mr. WALLHEAD: Is it not a fact that recently, during some of the disturbances in China, British residents have received protection from troops attached to the Russian Consulate?

Mr. McNEILL: I could not answer that without notice. I should have to look at the records.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH COMMERCIAL SECRETARIAT, NEW YORK.

Sir F. WISE: 76.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if the British Embassy has opened offices in New York; and, if so, what is the total cost?

Mr. McNEILL: I presume the hon. Member's question refers to the branch
of the Commercial Secretariat of His Majesty's Embassy at Washington, which was recently established at New York and placed in charge of a Commercial Secretary, Grade II, hitherto resident at Washington. The additional cost involved is, approximately, £400.

Oral Answers to Questions — SHEERNESS AND CHATHAM DOCKYARDS.

Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGE: 78.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty if Sheer-ness and Chatham Dockyards are within long-range gun-fire from the Continent; and, if so, whether it is considered possible to work these dockyards in time of war?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Davidson): The dockyards referred to are 47 and 51 miles respectively from the nearest point on the Continent. In these circumstances, it is not anticipated that they could be brought under effective fire. The answer to the second part of the question is, therefore, in the affirmative.

Oral Answers to Questions — PALESTINE (YARKON POWER HOUSE).

Captain WATERHOUSE: 61.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what arrangements, if any, have been made by the concessionnaire under the Ruthenberg concession to erect the Yarkon power house; if any pressure is being brought to bear in order to expedite this work; and if, and when, the penalty clause under Clause 4 of the agreement will come into operation?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for COLONIAL AFFAIRS (Mr. Ormsby-Gore): The postition is as stated in the latter part of my reply to the hon. and gallant junior Member for Southampton on the 15th of June. The greater part of the area covered by the Jaffa Electric Company's concession is already supplied from a fuel power station at Tel Aviv. The company have been required to submit a scheme within a period expiring in two months' time to supply the remainder of the area, which comprises the town of Petach Tikvah and the surrounding area, either from the existing
fuel station or from a hydro-electric station constructed in accordance with the original plan. The Palestine Government will, no doubt, consider the propriety of bringing the penalty clause into operation if the scheme is not submitted within the time limit specified above.

Captain WATERHOUSE: In view of the fact that we are so short of trade, will the right hon. Gentleman make every effort to ensure that this concession is carried out under the terms of the agreement?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Yes, that is being done.

Oral Answers to Questions — MONTAGU COLLIERY.

Mr. WARNE: 66.
asked the Secretary for Mines whether he has received the Report of the investigation he has instituted into the conditions at Montagu colliery; and what action he is prepared to take in the matter?

Sir H. BARNSTON: I have been asked to reply. My hon. and gallant Friend has not yet received this Report, but understands that it will probably be ready for presentation within the next day or two.

Oral Answers to Questions — DOMINIONS (MOST-FAVOURED-NATION TREATIES).

Colonel GRETTON: 73.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Dominions have been released from the obligations of the most-favoured-nation treaties to which they were parties, either in accordance with the practice in use before 1880 or by their acceding to such treaties, in accordance with the request, that they may be so released made at the Imperial Conference of 1911?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I have been asked to reply. In accordance with the Resolution of the Imperial Conference, 1911, to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers, negotiations were opened with the Foreign Governments concerned. In a number of cases, supplementary agreements have been concluded under which the Dominions are enabled to withdraw from the Treaties in question if they so desire.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY.

ACCOUNTANCY.

Mr. BENNETT: 67.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether any decisions have yet been reached on the Report of the Lawrence Committee and future of the corps of military accountants?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Yes, Sir. After careful and prolonged consideration the Army Council have decided that the system advocated by the majority of the Committee, besides presenting serious disadvantages, e.g., from the point of view of mobilisation, would involve a heavier expense on account keeping than we can afford in the present circumstances of financial stringency.
It is, therefore proposed, subject to the approval of the Committee of Public Accounts, to discontinue the "cost" accounts of combatant units, retaining only those of productive and other establishments for which such accounts are of proved value. It is also proposed to return to the cash form for the Army Estimates and Accounts presented to this House, while at the same time furnishing supplementary information as to the full cost of various parts of the Army. This change will involve a reduction in the numbers of the accounting staff.

SWEDISH PLIERS, WOOLWICH DOCKYARD.

Mr. CROOKE: 69.
asked the Secretary of State for War if he is aware that at the dockyard, Woolwich, pattern room, cutting pliers of Swedish make are offered as samples for tender; and will he see that none but British manufactured goods are exhibited or purchased by his Department?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Captain Douglas King): The cutting pliers of Swedish make were selected as the most suitable example to guide manufacturers. It is stated in the specification that the pattern may be regarded as typical only and need not be copied in all details. The only orders placed have been for British manufactured articles, and I have no reason to anticipate that it will be necessary to accept foreign manufactured supplies in the future. As soon as articles of British manufacture suitable as patterns are received, they will be substituted for the Swedish pattern.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the War Office satisfied that no combine can be made against them to artificially raise the price, and will they reserve the right to import from abroad if they suspect it?

Captain KING: I do not think that arises out of this question at all.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Does the War Office accept the principle that they must on no account buy anything from abroad?

Captain KING: No: but we always endeavour to give a preference to British goods.

Mr. HARRIS: Does not that handicap State dockyards as compared with private dockyards, who can buy in the open market?

Sir CLEMENT KINLOCH-COOKE: Is there a preference to British goods in regard to the seating of the House of Commons?

Captain KING: That does not arise.

INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE.

Mr. JAMES HUDSON: 70.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for India when the Government intends to carry out the recommendation of the Lee Commission to the effect that 20 per cent, of 50 per cent, of the appointments to the Indian Civil Service should be filled by officers promoted from the provincial Civil Service?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Earl Winterton): This recommendation is now under consideration, and a decision will be reached as soon as possible. If the hon. Member will look again at the Report, he will see that he understates the proportion recommended, which was 20 per cent, of the total recruitment.

Oral Answers to Questions — CONTRIBUTORY PENSIONS BILL.

Mr. J. HUDSON (for Mr. ROBINSON): 18.
asked the Minister of Health whether dependants' pensions payable or that may become payable under Articles 1102, 1103 and 1104 of the Royal Warrant for the Pay, Appointment, Promotion, and
Non-effective Pay of the Army, 1922, will be taken into consideration when the recipients become eligible for pension under the Widows', Orphans', and Old Age Contributory Pensions Bill?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir.

Mr. J. HUDSON (for Mr. ROBINSON): 19.
asked the Minister of Health whether pensions payable to dependants, other than widows, children, or parents, under Article 22 of the Royal Warrant of 1922 and the corresponding Order in Council affecting the Navy, will be taken into consideration when the recipients become eligible for pension under the Widows', Orphans', and Old Age Contributory Pensions Bill?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The reference to Article 22 of the Royal Warrant of 1922 is not understood. Pensions to the dependants of men who served in the Navy are given under the Order in Council dated 7th November, 1924, and, if the question relates to persons entitled under Article 27 of that Order, the answer is in the negative.

Oral Answers to Questions — MONEYLENDERS' ADVERTISEMENTS.

Mr. EDMUND WOOD (for Sir R. GOWER): 58.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to an advertisement, inserted in a London newspaper by a firm of registered moneylenders, appealing to prospective borrowers to let such firm be their private bankers; and what proceedings he proposes to take, having regard to the provisions of the Moneylenders Act, 1911, which provides, inter alia, that any moneylender who issues any advertisement which might reasonably be held to imply that he carries on banking business shall be liable to penalties?

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir Douglas Hogg): I have been asked to reply. I have referred the advertisement in question to the Director of Public Prosecutions, who advises me that proceedings in respect of it, under Section 2 of the Moneylenders Act, 1911, would not be likely to succeed, and, therefore, it is not proposed to take any action in the matter.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH BROADCASTING COMPANY.

Mr. CHARLES EDWARDS (for Mr. W. BAKER): 60.
asked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the British Broadcasting Company is able, after paying a dividend of 7½ per cent., to carry over nearly £80,000; whether he is aware that his predecessor agreed to the division of £2,000 of a previous surplus between the directors of the Broadcasting Company in addition to their normal fees; and whether he will give an assurance that no such bonus will be agreed to during the present year?

Viscount WOLMER: The answer to the first two parts of the hon. Member's question is in the affirmative. With regard to the last part, I understand that no such bonus has been suggested or is contemplated.

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL INDUSTRY DISPUTE.

Mr. RAMSAY MacDONALD: I do not wish in the middle of the day's negotiations to ask the Government for a statement of the present position in regard to the mining dispute, but I would like to take this opportunity of asking whether later in the day we might have a statement from the Prime Minister as to how matters are proceeding?

The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Austen Chamberlain): I have been in communication with my right hon. Friend, and he says that he hopes he may be in a position to make a statement later in the day. I cannot say that he will, but he hopes that he may be in a position to do so. If so, I imagine that by the leave and general consent of the House an opportunity will be found for the making of such a statement, at whatever hour.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. MacDONALD: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what business the Government propose to take next week?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The House will understand that the Prime Minister Has been fully occupied with other business, and I hope, therefore, that will be some
excuse for the poverty of my answer in regard to business, until I have had an opportunity of consulting him. The business for next week will be:

Monday: Supply, Committee—Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries Vote.

Tuesday: Supply, Report—Scottish Estimates.

The business for the remainder of the week I hope to be able to announce later.

On Monday and Tuesday at Ten o'clock the Committee and Report stages respectively of all the outstanding Votes in Supply will be put from the Chair. After the conclusion of the business of SUPPLY We shall consider other Orders, including:

Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Bill;
National Library (Scotland) Bill;
Lords Amendments to the Greenwich Hospital (Disused Burial Ground) Bill;
Teachers (Superannuation) Bill, and Therapeutic Substances Bill [Lords];

unless the House has disposed of these Orders previously.

Ordered,
That the proceedings on the Unemployment Insurance Bill and on the Telegraph (Money) Bill have precedence this day of the Business of Supply, and be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—[Mr. Austen Chamberlain.]

NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND BILL [Lords].

Reported, with Amendments, from the Standing Committee on Scottish Bills.

Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed.

Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 247.]

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

That they have agreed to—

Ministry of Health Provisional Orders (No. 3) Bill,
Lanarkshire County Council Order Confirmation Bill,
647
London and North Eastern Railway Order Confirmation Bill,
Mental Deficiency (Amendment) Bill,
Ministers of Religion (Removal of Disqualifications) Bill,
Isle of Man (Customs) Bill,
Education (Scotland) (Superannuation) Bill,
Leicester Fire Brigade Provisional Order Bill,
Salford Provisional Order Bill,
Land Drainage (Ouse) Provisional Order Bill,
London County Council (Money) Bill, without Amendment.
Allotments Bill,
Burnley Corporation Bill,
Bath Corporation Bill,
Middlesex County Council Bill, with Amendments.

Amendments to—

Advertisements Regulation Bill [Lords],
Poole Harbour Bill [Lords],
London Electricity Supply (No. 1) Bill [Lords],
London Electricity Supply (No. 2) Bill [Lords], without Amendment.

That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to amend the Dangerous Drugs Acts, 1920 and 1923, so far as is necessary to enable effect to be given to a Convention signed at Geneva, on behalf of His Majesty, on the nineteenth day of February, nineteen hundred and twenty-five." [Dangerous Drugs Bill [Lords.]

ALLOTMENTS BILL.

Lords Amendments to be considered To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 248.]

DANGEROUS DRUGS BILL [Lords].

Read the First time; to be read a Second time To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 249.]

BILLS REPORTED.

Bexhill Corporation Bill [Lords].

Reported, with Amendments, from the Local Legislation Committee (Section A); Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

West Ham Corporation Bill [Lords],

Reported, with Amendments, from the Local Legislation Committee (Section B); Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

Ministry of Health Provisional Orders Confirmation (No. 4) Bill [Lords],

Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.

Bill to be read the Third time To-morrow.

Ministry of Health Provisional Orders Confirmation (No. 5) Bill [Lords],

Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.

Bill to be read the Third time To-morrow.

Ministry of Health Provisional Orders Confirmation (No. 6) Bill [Lords],

Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.

Bill to be read the Third time To-morrow.

Ministry of Health Provisional Orders Confirmation (No. 7) Bill [Lords],

Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.

Bill to be read the Third time To-morrow.

Ministry of Health Provisional Orders Confirmation (No. 8) Bill [Lords],

Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.

Bill to be read the Third time To-morrow.

Ministry of Health Provisional Orders Confirmation (No. 9) Bill [Lords],

Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.

Bill to be read the Third time Tomorrow.

Ministry of Health Provisional Orders Confirmation (Water) Bill [Lords],

Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.

Bill to be read the Third time Tomorrow.

Colonial Bank Bill [Lords],

Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table.

Boothferry Bridge Bill [Lords],

Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

Orders of the Day — UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE BILL.

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

Mr. T. SHAW: May I ask, Mr. Speaker, for the convenience of the House, if you will be kind enough to state what Amendments you propose to select to be taken on the Bill?

Mr. SPEAKER: I have had the opportunity this morning of a conversation with the right hon. Gentleman and with some other hon. Members sitting on my left, and I have made a provisional selection of ten Amendments which I am prepared to put to the House. It will be necessary to have the help of the House, if that is to be possible.

The first Amendment is that which stands in the name of the right hon. Gentleman, to leave out Clause 1.

I understand that a Division only will be taken on the next one, which stands in the name of the hon. Member for West Notingham (Mr. Hayday).

The third is the Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Aberdare (Mr. G. Hall), raising an important point, which is likely to take some little time.

The fourth Amendment on Clause 1 is the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. T. Thomson), which will require a short time.

Then, with regard to the Amendments on Clause 3, there is first the Amendment in the name of the right hon. Member for Newton (Mr. R. Young).

There is next an Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. L. Thompson).

Then there are two Amendments in the name of the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan). The first follows the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Sunderland, and the second is the last Amendment on the same page of the Order Paper.

The next Amendment is that of the hon. and gallant Member for Leith (Captain W. Benn) on Clause 4.

The last Amendment is the Government Amendment, also on Clause 4.

Mr. BATEY: Are we to understand that you rule all the other Amendments out of Order? Let us understand. Has there been an arrangement with someone that we are to take these Amendments and that the other Amendments are not to be taken? I want to know whether we are to be allowed to move some of the other Amendments. There is an Amendment in my name on page 1 of the Order Paper referring to paragraph (a) of Clause 1. That is a very important Amendment. Are we not to be allowed to move it?

Mr. SPEAKER: That is not my intention. I think that those Amendments are all covered by the Amendment which precedes them, to which I have referred, which stands in the name of the hon. Member for Aberdare, and discussion on them could only be a repetition of the points dealt with in discussing the preceding Amendment.

Mr. STEPHEN: With reference to the Amendment to Clause 2 standing in my name, there is no other Amendment to Clause 2 on the Paper, and as the power of extending the time is to be given to the Minister, surely we should have some opportunity of discussing the conditions in which this power will operate. With reference to the points raised with regard to (a), (b), (c), and (d), last year when the Unemployment Insurance Act was passed because the discretionary power of the Minister was taken away, and the unemployed man was given a statutory right, all those conditions were put in to make it more difficult for him, because the discretion was withdrawn. Therefore we should be allowed to have a Division in reference to at least those provisions (a), (b), (c), and (d), as they are a matter of great importance to the unemployed.

Mr. SPEAKER: I will further consider that, and if the discussion on the Amendment of the hon. Member for Aberdare be not unduly prolonged, I will see if it be possible to call the other Amendment, for the purpose of a Division.

Mr. BUCHANAN: With reference to Clause 2, which is of great importance,
may I point out that I attended the sittings of the Committee regularly, and there was no discussion on a point which is raised here for the first time? I ask, in view of the fact that the Amendments were put down without any cognisance of the Front Bench, whether it would not be possible to have a discussion on that?

Mr. SPEAKER: With regard to the Amendment on Clause 2, the reason I have not selected it is that it deals with a matter of administration, and not a matter of legislation. It is not in accordance with the scope of the Bill, and is not in order.

Mr. STEPHEN: With regard to the point in respect of the Clause which gives the Minister the power of waiver for an extended period, would it be possible to have a discussion if I put down an Amendment to leave out Clause 2 in order that we might deal with some points which arise? Would it be possible to hand in a manuscript Amendment to leave out Clause 2?

Mr. SPEAKER: I will consider that.

CLAUSE 1.—(Amendment of s. 1 (3) of Unemployment Insurance (No. 2) Act, 1924, 14 and 15 Geo. 5, c. 30.)

Mr. COMPTON: I beg to move to leave out the Clause.
4.0 P.M.
This Clause seeks to take away from the unemployed people of the country certain rights which were conferred upon them as statutory rights under the Act of 1924. When that Act was going through this House we did not find any real objection to it on the ground which is covered by this Clause. On the Second Heading of this Bill, during the Committee stage, no proof was produced of any abuse of the particular right which was conferred by the Act passed last year. We on these benches feel that to take away a statutory right, and to place in the hands of any Minister—admirable gentleman though the present Minister of Labour may be—a discretion in this matter is something which is dangerous not only to the individual concerned, but to the whole community, and especially to the unemployed people. These powers are sought by the Minister and we regard with very grave concern indeed the proposal that they should be allowed.
Furthermore, this Clause will, in our opinion, deal very harshly with a certain class of people whose income at the present time is limited to a very low degree. We are cognisant of the fact that almost 300,000 men have been added to the unemployed live register since about this period last year. In addition, we are cognisant of the fact that these 300,000 do not give the total increase in the number of unemployed since that period. That most objectionable Circular, issued by the present Minister of Labour on 19th February this year, has been the means of removing many thousands of names of unfortunate people from the unemployed live register and turning them over to the Poor Law. We maintain that the increase in the number of unemployed is greater than that shown by the statistics supplied to us. The Minister has not produced one single argument in favour of this Clause being the means of reducing unemployment in any shape or form. As a matter of fact, we feel that it will have the opposite effect. Therefore, I repeat that it gives an opportunity to the Minister or to his Department to impose hardships upon certain individuals in the community who are already sufficiently depressed by the anxious days and weeks in which they have been seeking employment which is not to be found in the country.
There is one reason which the Minister has given, and it is a reason which does not in any sense appeal to Members on these benches. He says that through the present Unemployment Insurance Bill he hopes to effect a saving of about £6,500,000. Under Clause I, the deletion of which I have moved, he expects to effect a saving of £1,500,000. I ask hon. Members opposite to ponder well upon what a saving of £1,500,000 from the small pittance given to men and women, many of whom have for years trudged the streets of our cities and towns in search of employment which the present industrial system has failed to provide, will mean. We object very seriously indeed that these people should be called upon, not only the men who have suffered in health and stamina, but the unfortunate victims who cannot fight their own battles, the women and the children, to suffer this hardship. We know of instances where teachers have given their mid-day meal rather than endeavour to teach children with empty stomachs.
It may be that this sum of £6,500,000 will not be found to be a great hardship when spread out, as it will be, over such a large section, but that is not at all the point. Although the sum may be small in itself, it does not affect the real feeling which this Bill, if carried, will create among the people of this country. There is among the poor people in the country a great amount of sympathy with those who are in worse circumstances than themselves. Working people cannot stand aside and see starvation in their midst. We know that the Minister is engaged elsewhere on a very important matter, but, if it had been possible, I should have liked him to have been present to hear what we have to say with regard to this Bill. The Act of 1924 imposed a statutory obligation upon the Ministry of Labour. That was found necessary because of what happened during the life of the preceding Government in the year 1923. The Parliamentary Secretary held a similar condition under the then Minister of Labour, and I hope on this occasion he will convey to the present Minister of Labour the remarks that I am about to make. The right hon. Gentleman's predecessor in the last Conservative Government, Sir Montague Barlow, sought powers in this House, whereby, as a Minister, he could deal with unemployment in a certain direction. Sir Montague Barlow has passed into the political wilderness. Although some months previously he had a majority of several thousands, he lost his seat, and I say that it was the sympathetic feeling of the workers in that particular constituency, having watched the effects of the administration of certain powers which the Minister had taken upon himself, that in the main caused that reversal and turned the Minister of Labour out of this House. Personally, I have no desire to see such a fate befall the present Minister of Labour. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] He is an admirable fellow in many ways. I hope, therefore, that the Minister of Labour, or the Parliamentary Secretary, will seriously consider the effect which this Clause, if carried, is likely to have on the feelings of the people of this country.
There is one thing which must always be borne in mind. The people of the country, whether employed or unemployed, must be fed, and, if you turn
them from the Employment Exchanges and refuse them the benefit to which they are legally entitled, then you are only turning them on to the Poor Law, and thereby shifting the burden from the taxpayer to the ratepayer, who in the present circumstances is already overburdened. It may be that there are many members in this House who do not come into contact with their constituents as some of us on this side of the House do. Many of us on these benches live in our constituencies. Our constituents know that we are at home week after week, and therefore we are not only forced to visit them but they call upon us and we hear the details of their daily life week in and week out. I can therefore assure hon. Members opposite that, if this Clause be carried, it will undoubtedly cause such irritation in the minds of the people of this country as will shake the foundations of the present Government.
This Clause also seeks in my opinion to take an undue advantage of those whom we should try to encourage in so far as the payment of unemployment insurance is concerned. Young men entering industry are forced to pay contributions at the age of 18. The Minister may utilise his powers to refuse benefit to a young single man who happens to be living with his parents. That is not only a gross injustice on the young man himself, but it is a bigger injustice on his parents. What will be the position of a miner with his 5s. per week trying to maintain a family if he is to have an able-bodied adult son forced upon him and invited to maintain him because he has been deprived of his benefit? What will be the position of the working engineer whose wage to-day is very little better than the wage of a miner? These men have sufficient worry and trouble to maintain themselves on their miserable wages, and they ought not to be called upon to bear this extra burden which the Ministry seek to impose upon them. These young men have paid their contributions, willingly and unwillingly, and, by every canon of the law, they aee entitled to their benefit. If by a majority of the Members of this House such powers are placed in the hands of the Minister as will deprive them of their benefit, then we shall not only be doing an illegal thing but something that will shake the very
foundations of the proper administration of justice from one end of the country to the other.

Mr. W. M. ADAMSON: I beg to second the Amendment.
I do so without making any attempt to repeat many of the arguments that were stated in opposition to this Clause upon the Second Reading and during the Committee stage. As a matter of fact, some of those statements are almost unprintable, because this is the most iniquitous Clause that the Minister could attempt to re-introduce into national insurance, particularly in view of the fact that it is a re-imposition of the position that applied prior to the 1924 Act. We are assured that under this Clause the Minister will economise in industrial insurance to the extent approximately of £1,500,000. Consider the position of the unemployed worker who, for an extended period, has been out of work, and compare the Vote yesterday, of many millions of pounds to useless purposes, with the fact that we are here asking for something that is going to protect human life, not merely of the unemployed worker himself, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gorton (Mr. Compton) has very ably said, of the women and children who will also be affected. That £1,500,000 may be used for other purposes, but it certainly cannot cover up the sorrow and suffering that will be caused and the disgrace that will fall upon the Minister and his Department for the action which they are taking in bringing this Clause again into operation.
It is, I believe, admitted by the Minister himself that his discretion under this Clause will cover some 300,000 of the 500,000 now in receipt of extended benefit. What a calamity in the homes of those men who have known what long periods of unemployment and destitution mean. What a calamity for men who have experienced all the difficulties of unemployment, and, as they say in the North, "whose children clem for something to eat," to have this forced upon them at the discretion of the Minister. To the 101 Regulations that are already in operation whereby unemployed workers have been deprived of benefits is now to be added the discretion of one man and one Department to take these benefits away from unemployed workmen. On the Second Reading of the
Bill, I was disposed to criticise the Minister for using the phrase that extended benefit was insurance upon credit, simply because the unemployed worker at some future period when in employment would have to pay his contributions to the insurance scheme. That is all the more reason I should say why under this Bill he should have something upon credit, because he has the onus imposed upon him that he must pay contributions at a later stage to provide for other unemployed men.
What is the alternative if this Clause is put into operation? The only alternative is that thousands of men will be forced upon the Poor Law. That is maintenance upon credit, because he will have to pay not, only his share of rates under the Poor Law, but when he gets into employment he will have to pay his share of the contributions for the benefits that he never receives and of which he is being deprived by this very Clause. We are on the verge of winter, when the suffering is going to be more terrible than it would be during the summer months, and I want to put it to the Parliamentary Secretary that, in imposing such a burden on the unemployed workers, he should carefully consider our second Amendment, under which he would at least have six months to think over this proposition and to find out the opinion of the common people of the country as to what he is doing, before he makes any attempt to justify such a position and to maintain his attitude upon the question. It may be all very well in the light of what has been promised to reduce benefits under unemployment insurance, but if this Clause is carried it will react upon the Ministry, in spite of the huge battalions which support it in this House. I hope that representatives of industrial constituencies who sit on the other side of the House, will indicate their opinion and the opinions of their constituents to the Minister. Leaving aside altogether the question of the men who are unemployed, at least hon. Members should consider the women and children who are bound to suffer and who are to be asked to extend their present suffering, while we have had no intimation during the Second Reading Debate or the Committee stage that the Minister is prepared sympathetically to consider either delaying or abolishing this iniquitous Clause.

Mr. SPEAKER: The Question I have to put is "That the words proposed to be left out, to the word 'shall,' in line 9, stand part of the Bill."

Mr. SPENCER: On a point of Order. I understood that the next Amendment—in page 1, line 6, at the beginning to insert the words "as from the first day of April, nineteen hundred and twenty-six—was to be taken.

Mr. SPEAKER: I am going to allow that Amendment to be taken, on line 9.

Mr. WIGGINS: I rise to support the Amendment. I strongly object to and protest against the removal of the rights given by the Act of 1924 for extended benefit. It is true that according to the actuarial report this is going to "save"—that is the word used by the Minister in the Committee—£1,500,000, but that money is going to be taken from the unemployed persons and is not a. saving to the Government fund. Further, it does not affect to any extent what the Government may have to pay. It is simply done to reduce the deficiency fund—so we are told. Now the deficiency fund to-day stands at something like £8,500.000. We are told it must be reduced, but it has stood at a higher figure than that in times gone by and the world has not come to an end, nor has the British Empire ceased to function. We protest, at this time when trade is bad and unemployment is rife, against an attempt to wipe out or reduce that deficiency when doing so means extreme suffering to people who are unemployed, and have been unemployed for a long time. We also object to the proposal that the Minister should have power to say who shall and who shall not have benefit. We do not believe that it is right for the Minister himself or his Department to have that power. It is not right nor good that any one man, however wonderful or beneficent he may be, should have the power of deciding who shall and who shall not receive benefit. Parliament which makes the laws, should decide from top to bottom, and from side to side, on what ground a man is to be entitled to benefit, whether standard benefit or extended benefit. In any case, the Minister himself will not be able to decide. He may lay down certain regulations and rules but these will have to be worked out by officials in the country and rota committees.
I am certain from my knowledge of the working of the Old Age Pension Act that no rota committee desires to have these inquisitorial duties once more placed on its shoulders. They hate such methods. They cannot help but hate them if they have any idea of other people's rights and privileges. The Minister, of course, has to judge of the circumstances of the case and the expediency in the public interest. Who is he going to wipe out? If this Clause is going to make a saving of £1,500,000, someone has to suffer to that extent. Who will the sufferer be? We tried to get to know in Committee upstairs, but our efforts were in vain: We had the suggestion that largely the money was going to come from young men and young women whose parents were able to keep them. But what right has the Minister to take away from anyone that for which they have paid? It may be argued that a commercial insurance company could not carry on with a huge deficiency like this. We agree, but we take it that when the Government introduce an Unemployment Insurance Bill the Government have the privilege of allowing a deficiency. Surely the Government have not arrived at the conclusion that the present period of bad trade represents the normal condition in the future. It would almost appear that they had come to that conclusion, and that they felt they must do something to prevent this deficiency becoming unwieldy. I suggest that this country is not yet finished or played out and that these people whom the Minister is going to deprive of extended benefit will, when they get work, have to help to pay off that deficiency.
The deficiency does not cost the Government anything. It is, I admit, financed by the Treasury but the Treasury charge interest to the fund, and that fund some time or other will have to be repaid and cleared off by the unemployed people themselves. It is true that this Bill in other Clauses gives something, but what is the genesis of the Bill? We can gather from what has been said that there have been complaints by industry of the burdens placed upon it by the new Pensions Bill, and that these are to be met by a reduction in the contributions to the unemployment insurance when the deficiency is wiped out. This Bill by the reduction of contribution gives the employers
£3,250,000 or £3,500,000, but I am certain that while industry wants its burdens removed it does not want them removed at the expense of the poverty and distress of the working people. Unless we can maintain good feeling between the employers and workers, what good will industry be to anybody?
I put this point to the Under-Secretary as one which he must consider fairly and squarely. The workers under the Unemployment Insurance Act who are going to have their contributions reduced would never have asked for those contributions to bra reduced so that the rest of the people should be robbed of benefit, but that is what is going to happen. Under this Bill you are going to reduce contributions by £6,800,000 and benefits by £6,500,000. Who is paying for it? The portion of our community which can least afford to bear it. It is not the standard benefit that is in danger but the extended benefit, the benefit given to men who have been a long time out of work and who through no fault of their own cannot find work in order that they may keep body and soul together. I appeal to hon. Members opposite who represent industrial constituencies to use their persuasive powers to see that this iniquitous Clause, this unfair and inhumane Clause, is withdrawn.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. Betterton): I share the regret expressed by the Mover of the Amendment at the absence of my right hon. Friend the Minister. As the House is well aware of the cause of that absence, I will say no more upon it. I also acknowledge the kindly apprehensions which have been expressed as to the political future of my right hon. Friend and myself if we are rash enough to persist in this Clause. That risk, I can assure hon. Members, we are prepared to take.
The Mover of the Amendment and the hon. Members who followed him attacked this Clause on two main grounds. First, they attacked it on the question of principle; and, secondly, they attacked it because, as they say, its effect will be to press harshly and unfairly on those who come within its purview. With regard to the latter point, I think I can remove many of the apprehensions and fears which have been expressed. I am not suggesting that these are not genuinely felt, but I think they are ill-founded.
Before doing so, I wish to refer to the first part of the case which has been presented to us. Really, between hon. Members opposite and ourselves there is a wide divergence of opinion. Hon. Members opposite persist in regarding this fund as one which is not an insurance fund at all, but a compassionate fund on which we can draw at will. If you once establish the right of an insured person to draw something for which he has not paid, you are doing something wholly inconsistent with the principle of contributory insurance. I quite recognise that there are many hon. Members who say that you can have a non-contributory principle. That argument would be relevant in regard to a non-contributory scheme, but it is not relevant to a contributory scheme. Hon. Members speak of "rights." They say a man has a right to something for which he has not paid. A right against whom? Not against this fund, which is an insurance fund. We have to consider, not only the rights of those who make these claims against the fund but also the rights of those who are contributors to the fund. In considering the rights of the contributors, we are bound to retain some relation between contributions and benefits. Until last vear that was always the principle upon which this House had proceeded, and when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Preston (Mr. T. Shaw) last year altered the word "un-covenanted" to "extended" it did not alter the principle upon which this provision was founded. This benefit was called "uncovenanted" because it had no covenant or bargain to support it. You do not get over the difficulty by merely calling it "extended." When the great slump came in 1921. the then Minister of Labour realised that there were many persons who, by no possibility could have been expected to subscribe because the slump coincided with a very large increase in the numbers who came within the purview of the Act, and he instituted what we then knew as uncovenanted benefit. He said, in effect, a man should have benefit beyond the contributions he had paid, provided he satisfied certain prescribed requirements. In a second Act of the same year the words used were:
If it appears to the Minister that having regard to all the circumstances of the case it is expedient in the public interest.
That was the position up to last year, when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Preston brought in his Bill, and he then made what was formerly a claim, depending upon the words I have just used, into a right. Having regard to the fact, however, that this is a contributory scheme, we have also to consider the rights of those who are the contributors to it, and we cannot accept as an absolute right the claim that persons should benefit in advance of contributions without being subject to the exercise of a discretion on the part of the Minister. The last speaker talked as if the Ministerial discretion, apart from this Clause, was not in the Bill at all, but, as a matter of fact, a discretion has to be exercised by the Minister on very many occasions and in many circumstances before this extended benefit is allowed, as, for instance, in all those cases under Section 1 of the Act of 1924 to which the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) referred. Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Preston (Mr. T. Shaw) himself, in his Bill of last year, realised the inconsistency of a contributory scheme, unless you reserved a discretion to the Minister, in the case of the claims to benefit of those persons whose contributions did not otherwise authorise them to receive it. On this question of principle, there is, between hon. Members opposite and ourselves, this fundamental difference, which I do not pretend to hide nor wish to obscure, as to whether, in a contributory scheme, it is possible to make statutory and of right something which is not sup-ported by the contributions paid.
In regard to the second part of the case of the three hon. Members who have spoken, they dealt with what they regarded as the hardships which would be imposed if this discretion were given. The hon. Member for Cannock (Mr. W. M. Adamson) said that, in his estimate, some 300,000 persons would be affected, but the estimate of the Minister is not 300,000 but 70,000, for the period between the date on which the clause comes into operation and the 30th June next.

Mr. T. SHAW: What does 70,000 mean? Does it mean the number of persons to which the Minister's discretion will apply in the Bill, or does it mean the number
to which it is his intention to apply his discretion?

Mr. BETTERTON: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, this Clause was in all the Bills prior to his own Bill of last year. In that Bill certain instructions were given, and it is the intention of my right hon. Friend to give similar instructions now. The number of persons affected by the instructions given by the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor was about 80,000 for a whole year, and so my right hon. Friend estimates that, approximately, 70,000 persons will be affected between the date of operation of this Clause and 30th June next.

Mr. SHAW: What does the Bill give him power to do—to apply it to 70,000 or to 300,000?

Mr. BETTERTON: The right hon. Gentleman is just as able as I am to realise what this Clause does. I am endeavouring to explain to him what my right hon. Friend is proposing to do. He is proposing, as he has already told the House, to limit the exercise of this power, in the first place, to young single persons living with relatives who can support them. Therefore, the case put, I am sure in all good faith, by the hon. Member for Cannock, of a man with very small wages who would be called upon to support, perhaps, a considerable number of persons cut off under this Clause, is not a valid case, and his fears are really without foundation, because the Minister proposes, as I say, to limit it to single young persons living with relatives who can support them. Whether they can support them or not is, of course, a question of fact, which will come up for consideration before the rota committees, and the rota committees, to the value of whose services I pay a very sincere and real tribute, will, knowing the circumstances of the case, and knowing the local conditions, decide in each case whether, in their view, such single young person is living with a relative who ought to he able to support him.

Mr. WALLHEAD: What will the Minister accept as a basis?

Mr. BETTERTON: That really is a question for the rota committees.

Mr. J. BECKETT: Will the Minister accept the decision of the rota committees?

Mr. BETTERTON: I must reserve, and do reserve, the right of the Minister, if he thinks the rota committees are wrong, and is satisfied that they are wrong, to exercise his discretion. The second case which the Minister proposes to include is that of a married woman or man whose husband or wife is earning sufficient to support either the husband or the wife, as the case may be. There are many cases, undoubtedly, where a married woman, living with her husband, is at present drawing benefit, when the income of that household is as much as, or it may be far more than, the income of many of those who are contributing to this fund and drawing no benefit. The third case is that of short-time workers, whose incomings are sufficient to justify the withholding of extended benefit; and the fourth case is that of aliens. Therefore, it will be observed that my right hon. Friend has been most careful, in suggesting these classes with regard to which he will exercise his discretion, to avoid including those who may fairly be said to suffer the hardships apprehended by the hon. Members opposite. This question has been debated in this House in my hearing, certainly twice or three times, and we have had, of course, a very full discussion of it upstairs in Committee. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] It was certainly discussed when the right hon. Gentleman brought in his Bill last year; it was discussed the other day on Second Reading, and I think the point is so clear that, although I do not expect the party opposite to agree with me, I think the House will have no difficulty in deciding to reject the Amendment.

Mr. SHAW: If the hon. Member will permit me to say so, we have heard another of the extraordinary speeches that have been delivered on this Bill, and particularly with regard to this Clause. It seems the most difficult thing in the world to get to know from the Government exactly what they mean, and, if one may be paradoxical, it is more difficult still to get a reason for what they mean. We are told that this applies to 70,000 workers. I assert that the Clause withdraws from a quarter of a million people a right to benefit, and places the granting of that benefit absolutely in the power of the Minister, and I challenge the hon. Gentleman to deny the statement that I make when I say that a quarter of a
million people come within the powers of the Minister if this Clause be passed; and it is not treating the House with the frankness that the House deserves to use the figure of 70,000 when the power given in the Clause extends at least to a quarter of a million.
There is certainly a great difference between the two sides of the House, that is, if hon. Members opposite support the Minister in principle. We did discuss this in Committee, and I want to call the hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that from the beginning to the end of the Committee stage the only speech that was made from his side, with the exception of those by the Minister and himself, was an apology for the Bill and a declaration that the Tory party did not like it any more than we do. A more extraordinary Committee, I venture to think, has never sat; a more extraordinary display of lack of knowledge of what the Bill is has never been shown; and certainly a more extraordinary display of lack of frankness has never been manifested in this House.
Now I will pass to one or two more of the things the hon. Member has stated with regard to this Clause. He says that the Unemployment Fund must not be looked upon as a compassionate fund, but he forgets, I think, what we have said so often, that the nation has a responsibility to these unemployed people, altogether apart from any contributions they pay, on the ground that many of them fought for the country in the War, and were promised, when they came, back, that they should be attended to. We are not prepared to accept the argument that this is an ordinary insurance concern, run in normal times for normal purposes at all. We say that this Government has a responsibility to these people. There has been another year of suffering since 1924, and the Government is absolutely unable to help the unemployed. Unemployment is much worse than it was at this time last year, and instead of the Government, in view of its failure to deal with the unemployment problem, coming forward and saying, "At least we will try to help the unemployed," it is coming forward and, by this Clause, making the position, not what it was in 1923, but worse, for while the Government wants to take away the right that 1924 gave, it leaves the obligations on
which that right was conferred in this Bill, and makes the present position of the unemployed worse than it was in 1923. After another year of unexampled unemployment, after a crass failure to deal with the situation, the Government actually proposes not to relieve the unemployed because of its failure to deal with the problem, but to make their position worse.
The Government appears to be in this position. It says: "We cannot help you to get work, but we must do something, so we will hurt you because you are out of work." That is what is proposed in this Clause, and particularly in Clause 3 of the Bill, and not a word of justification of it was uttered by a single member of the Committee, outside the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary.
I have dealt with the numbers affected, and may I now deal with the principle. What the Minister says he intends to do is not at all what the Bill says he intends to do. What he says he intends to do is to take rights of benefit away from people who are paying in exactly the same way and have exactly the same liabilities as the people to whom you will be paying the benefit. Was there anything in insurance ever so mad as that? It is the most extraordinary thing I have ever heard. The young people, who are the best assets of this scheme, are the people who are to be refused benefit while their next-door neighbour will be paid benefits, after having paid the same amount of contributions as have been paid by the other man. That is what this Clause intends to do. The only excuse for it is that it saves one and a-half million pounds. There can be no other excuse. It is the only excuse which has been adduced. It does not save one and a-half million pounds to the Treasury funds. I wish my right hon. Friend had told us what it means to the Treasury. Suppose I suggest to him that the Treasury will not save more than £400,000 by this, I wonder if he will accept my figure? It is easy to calculate it. The Treasury contribution—I am speaking in round figures—to this one and a half million pounds is only £400,000, and for that £400,000 what do the Government intend to do? They intend to make young men and women spongers on their parents,
parasites on working-class families, all for the sake of £400,000. It puts these young people in the position—and every working man and woman knows it—that is likely to prevent them getting married when they are ready to get married. In a working-class family the present rule is that a boy or girl of a certain age pays his or her full wage into the family exchequer, but on reaching a certain age that young person becomes a boarder, paying a certain sum per week to his parents. That is the only opportunity the parents have of ever getting in their life anything like real comfort and of putting a little bit away for a rainy day. You stop benefit, and what is the result? The result is that the young nun or woman falls on the parent for board. When they get work they start under a staggering load of debt, which may take years to wipe off. That is what you are doing to save £400,000. It is the greatest humbug in the world. You save £400,000, but you can spend innumerable millions on other things. To save £400,000, you are willing to put numbers of young men and women into a state of chronic debt and to destroy their independence by making them bound to get into debt and they become parasites on their families.
I never in the whole course of my Parliamentary experience heard a more paltry proposition this this. I never knew a meaner or a more unfair proposition. Why should A, who is living next door to B, and paying exactly the same rate, be refused benefits while B gets them? Can anybody give a reason? Not only is the process unfair, but how are you going to administer this Clause when you get it? In every individual case you have got to have an investigation as to whether the family circumstances are such as will justify you in refusing the benefits. Was there ever a worse example of bumbledom since the world commenced? What you will get is this: that the decent people will suffer because they will not stand your infernal inquisition, and those that you consider not decent will get the benefits in spite of it. You are penalising the best portion of our population, and you are doing it for a saving which to the country is infinitesimal.
I cannot understand the frame of mind of the Government. Frankly I admit
that there is such a gulf between us as to be apparently unbridgeable. Have we forgotten everything we ever promised to these young men? All you are trying to do is to see that working-class families shall not get too much money. That is the broad, salient fact of this matter—to see that they do not get too much, to keep them down, to screw them if you can, and, if you get any money out of it, so much the better. I think that in doing this you are committing, not a sensible act, but a crime. You are injuring the nation and taking away a right which ought not to be taken away. You are treating people differently who are paying in exactly the same way, and you will make the people who are most likely to pay off your deficits, pay the deficit that has been incurred, although they have been refused the benefits which have caused the deficit.
There is another class of people who will apparently be hit, in addition to the young men and women. You talk of aliens. I know exactly what the alien question means. It is the biggest piece of spoof and humbug ever perpetrated in the House. I am sorry to see a responsible Cabinet Minister, at least one, who sits in the present Cabinet, went so far as to write at least one article which was glaringly incorrect from beginning to end and showed an absolute lack of knowledge of what the circumstances were.

Mr. LANSBURY: He gets £5,000 a year.

Mr. SHAW: Then we are told that short-time workers are not to be paid. Who is the short-time worker who gets paid? It is the man who generally loses at least half his week's wage and because taking an average wage in the country, he earns £1 a week, he must have no benefit! As I have said three or four times in these discussions, I should like to put every Member who supports this Clause on £1 a week and keep him there. Then in three weeks we should have the majority of those Members opposite on this side and the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be seeking a position in the Army at Moscow.

Mr. LANSBURY: We should have a revolution.

Mr. SHAW: We should have a revolution pretty quickly. To sum up, we cannot accept the explanation the hon. Gentleman has given as being what the Clause means. It gives the Minister power to deal with a quarter of a million people and the right absolutely to refuse them benefit. It is no use saying to us that it means 70,000. If the right hon. Gentleman meant 70,000, he should have put 70,000 into his Bill. But he did not. He put a quarter of a million in his Bill. It is unjust because it refuses to one man the benefit it pays to another in exactly similar circumstances. It is bad for the morale of the people, because it makes young people parasites on their parents. It is bad because it will land them with a staggering load of debt, for every working man who has gone through it knows what it means, and that debt will lay on them for years to come. It is particularly ungenerous, because the unemployed are entitled to better and not worse terms than they were getting. It is particularly ungenerous on the part of a Government which is absolutely incapable of dealing with the problem and is helpless and hopeless before it, and which comes forward not to help on but to destroy even that which the poor has. It is bad because it will prevent the young man or woman, who ought to get married and who wants to get married, from getting married. It will prevent young people from setting up their homes and land them into conditions in which their difficulties will be increased tenfold—all for the saving of a miserable £400,000 a year! And that is the first result of the work of this beneficent Conservative Government, which, instead of taking the right way to help the unemployed, comes forward and proposes, literally to rob them.
We do fundamentally disagree with this Clause. We make no appeal, and I personally am making no appeal to the Government. A Government that can propose a Clause like this under the circumstances and with the unemployment we have, is beyond the pale, and the Clause itself is, if I may say so, beyond contempt.

Mr. CADOGAN: The right hon. Member for Preston (Mr. T. Shaw) has drawn the attention of the House to the fact that no back bench Member on the Government side was prepared to defend
this Clause in Committee upstairs. I can assure him that it was no lack of courage or conviction on the part of the Back Bench Members on this side of the House that prompted them not to break the silence. It was far more the consideration that it would be less waste of time if the Labour party obstructionist tactics were given free play and allowed to perish of their own futility.

Mr. SPEAKER: I think it is rather dangerous to go into the proceedings upstairs. I was a little afraid of it from the other side, and I cannot allow it from any quarter.

Mr. CADOGAN: I accept your ruling, Sir.

Mr. BUCHANAN: May I raise this point of Order? The hon. Gentleman stated that there were certain obstructionist tactics upstairs. Is not that a reflection on certain Members of a Committee and on the Chairman? Apart from that, I was one of the Members upstairs, among several of my colleagues, and we resent very much the suggestion that all we were working for was obstruction.

Mr. DUFF COOPER: On that point of Order. May I remind the House that the Labour party cannot truthfully and sincerely complain of being charged with obstruction, for when the Bill was last before the House, the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) closed his speech with these words:
We shall do everything in our power when this Bill comes to Committee to obstruct it and prevent it from becoming law in any shape or form.

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member has given a very good illustration to strengthen me in my original purpose not to allow any discussion on the proceedings upstairs to take place down here, where we are supposed to have no knowledge of them.

5.0 P.M.

Mr. CADOGAN: I apologise to the hon. Member. I was not reflecting upon him, but paying a tribute to the ingenuity of hon. Members opposite. I listened to him, and to the Mover and the Seconder of the Amendment. Having done so, the conviction is borne in upon me that they base their argument on three utterly fallacious assumptions. In the first place, they assume that the cases of standard
and extended benefit are exactly on a par; in the second place, they assume that the employment of the Minister's discretion will operate harshly in respect of those who have no other resources to fall back upon; and, thirdly, they assume that insurance is not an exact science—to use the words of the right hon. Gentleman himself, that insurance can be anything you care to make it. As far as I can determine, the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to make it a perfect farce. He and his Friends say that there is no sanctity inherent in the principle of insurance. That is where they are wrong. That there must be some ratio between the contributions and the distribution of benefits is a precept of insurance which is as incontrovertible as the laws of the Medes and Persians. It is perfectly true, as Members on the other side say, that if the Government desire to secure to the individual worker either work or maintenance free gratis for nothing, it is competent for them to do so; but that is not insurance. I am well aware of the attitude of the Labour party on the subject of unemployment. It is that unemployment should be a State charge, that the worker has got an alternative claim: he can claim that the State shall give him work, and if that work be not procurable, he shall have maintenance. But that is not what we are discussing now. That is not what we are concerned with at this moment. We are debating the merits of an insurance scheme, and insurance to be insurance must be based on certain actuarial foundations. It has to be, even in the case of an ordinary insurance company which has colossal reserves upon which to fall back. How much more is it so in the case of the Government, which has no such reserves?
After all, the Socialist Government never brought in a work or maintenance Bill, a Bill which, I believe, was in the old original Socialist programme. So far from bringing in a Bill of that complexion, they not only recognised the principle of insurance, but introduced an Insurance Bill of their own, and so gave a Labour cachet to the principle of insurance. Once you recognise the principle of insurance, you have to recognise the existence of the actuary. The right hon. Member for Preston, when in office, did recognise the existence of the actuary. Now he affects to regard the
actuary as the Mrs. 'Arris of the Ministry, and affects to believe that there is no such person. We know there is. It is very noteworthy what an important part the actuary plays in the business of Government at the present time, and whenever the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Minister of Health, or the Minister of Labour is engaged in our proceedings, the actuary seems to hover over our deliberations. I suppose to the Labour party the actuary appears in the guise of some unwholesome bird of prey, who will swoop down and snatch up their most cherished arguments. The Government Front Bench probably regard him as a tutelary divinity. Personally, I regard the actuary as a quite unsentimental person, very useful, and one who knows move about mathematics than some hon. Members opposite.

Mr. SPENCER: May I ask how the hon. Gentleman can explain Clause 4 of this Bill if he is arguing for a scientific insurance?

Mr. CADOGAN: I am arguing about Clause 1. I should be completely out of order if I dealt with Clause 4. We on this side of the House are absolutely convinced that it is in the interests of the unemployed worker himself that there should be some connection between the right to draw benefit and the contributions themselves. It is quite true that you conferred a right in the last Parliament upon those who drew extended benefit, but that right was absolutely meaningless and artificial. The right to standard benefit is founded on law, equity, and common sense. The right to draw extended benefit in the last Parliament was merely founded on a desire to please a certain portion of the electorate, and I am not sure that it had that effect. We have already distorted the principle of insurance almost beyond recognition by grafting on to it extended benefit. I quite agree that, owing to the abnormal industrial depression, it was very necessary to do so, but, as a consequence of having grafted it on, it is very essential that the Government should reserve powers of discretion and discrimination.
The Labour party affect to believe that the administration under this law is going to be drastic. Have they read anything of the account of the Swedish Unemployed Commission? If so, I think they will have changed their tone. That Commission is possessed of almost dictatorial
powers, and practically independent of its own Government. It fixes the amount of benefit, controls relief works, and even has powers—and, I believe, exercises them—of reducing wages. That Commission has been attended with absolutely phenomenal success, and has been able to witness the return of Sweden almost to her pre-War prosperity. Yet here when an insurance Minister says that a scheme shall be founded on sound insurance principles, Members opposite say it is tyrannical, and will deprive the working man of benefits to which he is entitled, and that it will remove the burden from the Exchequer on to the rates.
That brings me to the other fallacy on which the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite have based their argument, that these persons affected by the discretion of the Minister are just those whom the guardians have no business to assist. The right hon. Gentleman said he deplored the fact that this is going to make young men sponge upon their relations. Is that any worse than making them sponge on the Insurance Fund; in other words, making them sponge on their fellow-workers? There is another point. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the young man who could not afford to get married, but if he got married, he would no longer be able to come upon his family. [Interruption.] I should like the Minister to deal with that point. I am certain the Opposition is labouring under a misapprehension in regarding this extended benefit as a right. It was a concession in the first instance. I was very much impressed by an observation that fell from the Minister of Health in the course of discussion on the Widows' and Orphans' Bill. He complained bitterly that he never obtained any gratitude for a concession. All that happens is that you incur blame for not making the concession wider, or not granting another. It is always the same thing—"This is a small point; surely the Minister can accept it." Apart from the fact that it is going to involve a sum of £1,500,000, hon. Members opposite must realise that these concessions are being asked for day after day in this House on every single Bill, and all these small concessions added together, and reduced to pounds, shillings and pence, are going to represent a very formidable sum. The Deficiency Fund at
present has a deficiency of £8,000,000 a year, and, unlike the ordinary insurance company, the Government have no reserve upon which to fall back, or, at least, the only reserve is the taxpayer, and the taxpayer has to find the reserve not only for this fund but for every fund, and every Government debt, commitment and obligation.
Hon. Members opposite have boasted that they are considering humanity rather than finance. It is just because we are concerned with humanity that we are considering finance. This is one of those cases where the interests of the individual and the Treasury are one. We have no less solicitude for the working man than have hon. Members opposite. This Bill is not going to deprive any honest working man of his charter. This Clause is not a retrograde Clause. It is a step in the right direction, in which we all want to go, namely, the solvency of the fund. That, of course, will be to the interest of the worker. For that reason, I do not regard this Measure as a retrograde one, but as a step in the right direction, and I believe if the working man does not appreciate that already, he will learn to appreciate it, and then he will realise that this Measure is guided by wise policy. For the time being, no doubt, hon. Members opposite will find it far easier to impress their audiences with the wicked cruelty of the Tory party. We on this side are not looking, at the present moment, for cheap popularity. The kind of improvident and profligate policy which they suggest is just as much open to us, but we are prepared to sacrifice temporary advantage for the ultimate good of the whole community. It is because of my firm belief that it is for the ultimate good of the whole community that I am going to support this Clause.

Mr. WALLHEAD: The hon. Member for Finchley (Mr. Cadogan) is a very apt illustration of the Minister's statement that there is a very wide gulf existing between us on these benches and hon. Gentlemen on that side of the House. He is a type of superior person, and, to my mind, has never known what real material poverty means, and it would do him, and some of his colleagues, a great deal of good if they were to undergo,
not for a week, but for three months, six months or 12 months, the heart-breaking experience of an unemployed man. This would be particularly the case if he were married, and had a wife and two or three little children, and saw his home gradually disappearing, bit by bit, to the broker's shop, or breaking up under the stress of wear and tear; if he found himself absolutely unable to—

Mr. CADOGAN: What has that got to do with whether or not this Clause should be passed? [Interruption.] The hon. Member has not heard what I said on some of these points.

Mr. WALLHEAD: I heard it all.

Mr. CADOGAN: I am not unsympathetic to the working man.

Mr. STEPHEN: One would not think that was so from your speech.

Mr. WALLHEAD: I should like to point out, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that we have heard arguments of that kind put forward by the hon. Gentleman before, and we expect to hear them again. The hon. Member must put up with our reiteration. For many years we have had to hear repeatedly more of the other side's statements than our own. As I say, what the hon. Gentleman said is an indication of the gulf that separates us. He talks about the taxpayers. His sole regard is for the taxpayer. The taxpayer is not to be regarded in this matter.

Mr. CADOGAN: Yes, and also the contributors.

Mr. WALLHEAD: Yes, but you did not talk about them at all.

Mr. CADOGAN: I did!

Mr. WALLHEAD: The only thing the Government falls back upon in regard to this matter is the consideration of the taxpayer. That is not my point of view.

Mr. CADOGAN: There are the contributors to the fund to be considered: I said so.

Mr. WALLHEAD: The contributors to the fund have never complained.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Captain FitzRoy): If hon. Members will address their remarks to me, instead of to one another, we shall get on better.

Mr. WALLHEAD: I shall do so. I should like to deal with the explanation given by the Minister. I want to discuss the whole of this Clause. This is the vital Clause in the Bill. Once this Clause is passed, the Bill, so far as we are concerned, is practically dead. [An HON. MEMBER: "Oh, no!"] So far as we are concerned. There are lots of other points, but the Minister made very great play with the discretionary powers of the Ministry in conjunction with the Rota Committee. One would believe a little more in that direction if the Ministry always accepted the advice of the Rota Committee. As a matter of fact, nothing of the kind happens. The Rota Committee may advise the Ministry, but the Ministry have discretionary powers to refuse that advice, given by the men on the spot. That is the difficulty, and the hardship—and there is a great deal of it—contained in this particular Measure. The young man or the young woman may be residing with parents at a time when no hardship will be incurred, because the Rota Committee has advised that where the father and the mother are in a position to maintain the son or the daughter who is unemployed they shall do so. But one has to consider that you have got 90 per cent, of the working people of the country at the present time whom you are leaving with a wage which does not guarantee them a decent livelihood. As a matter of fact, 90 per cent, of our people are abjectly poor.

Mr. LANSBURY: Hear, hear!

Mr. WALLHEAD: The average wage in this country for workpeople is £3 a week, and that is not a living wage when prices are what they are. A living wage is at least £5 a week, and everybody who is not getting that is, from my point of view, actually poor.
We have from one end of the country to the other, villages and districts, all kinds of men who are working three days a week, and it will be interesting to see how the Minister will regard this. Is a man with three days or four days a week able to maintain a son who is unemployed, and will the latter be refused unemployment benefit? In the area that I have the honour to represent, in addition to the thousands of men who are totally unemployed, there are thousands more who for the last two or three years have
been continually on short time. Not only does that apply to the coal trade, but it applies to the cotton trade. You will find that many of the men who are working short time will have, it may be, sons who are following the same occupations as the father, and the son may be out of work entirely. Under the powers of this Bill the father will be called upon, I suppose, to maintain the son, while the Minister tells us that the Rota Committee will advise as to what is to be done. I should be pleased to know whether or not the Minister always accepts the advice of the Rota Committee composed of those who are on the spot? It appears to me that this Bill is an attempt to penalise the men who are suffering through no fault of their own. I could understand the general position and the whole Bill better if this proposal was the effect of causes which the sufferer himself was able to control. As a matter of fact, the people who are suffering and who come under this Bill are suffering, not from causes which they can control, but because of the breakdown of the system of control by hon. Gentlemen opposite. It is their miscalculation which has brought many of these to the pass in which they are at the present moment. On the Second Reading of the Bill I described it as an endeavour to escape from the difficulties created for the Government by the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The sufferings undergone by the people who are enduring unemployment now is a result of causes which they themselves cannot possibly control. This Bill is going to punish people who are already penalised by a system which they cannot control. Unemployment itself is a penalty. Men have been penalised and are bearing the burden of a badly-organised industrial system, and are going to be punished still further because they have fallen under the ban of society so far as the breakdown of the industrial system is concerned. The whole thing is such a monstrous proposal that one is surprised that it can find supporters in any part of the House.
Another point I want to mention is this. The unemployed man is one of ourselves. We do not regard him as a subject for scientific disquisition. I am afraid that hon. Members on the other side regard the unemployed man more in the
nature, to use a common term, of "a damned nuisance" than anything else. That is what he has become so far as they are concerned. Their one hope is to get shot of him at the earliest possible moment—if they possibly can do so. We cannot be expected to accept that point of view. The Government had a chance last October. They have the biggest majority of recent times, the biggest majority that the Conservative party have ever had in this House, so, at least, the Prime Minister himself boasted. He said his power was greater so far as his majority went than that of any other Conservative Prime Minister in this House before his time. They claimed they could deal with this matter. They claimed that they had the power by which our industrial struggles would cease. Instead of that happening, they have gone from bad to worse. Now, owing to their incapacity they are punishing the people, those whom they should have helped by every means in their power. The proposal before us. is a most dastardly proposal, a thing to be condemned by every right-thinking person. When I heard the hon. Gentleman the Member for Finchley (Mr. Cadogan) give a scientific disquisition upon the value' of the actuary so far as unemployment figures are concerned, well, I realised then how great is the gulf between himself and myself.
I am not concerned about Government Departments. I am not concerned with the saving of half a million. I am not concerned as to whether those connected with the Treasury can save six and a half million pounds to-day to pay for the Government's infernal naval programme. During the next seven or eight years we are going to spend £58,000,000. We are going to save an almost equal amount, year by year, to enable the Government to pay for their naval programme. The unemployed are going to pay for the whole of the ships. The rich people want a Navy to protect their possessions and investments abroad, and, by heavens, they are going to spend the sum of £8,000,000 a year on the Navy to protect those investments. They are going to extract the money by subjecting the unemployed to starvation. That is what it comes to in the end. The people who receive the least, and who get the least out of society, are going to be made, out of the savings of their miserable payments
to the unemployment fund, to pay for the Navy for the defence of the possessions of hon. Gentlemen who represent the possessions, the finance, and the Imperial power of this country. It is a grotesque perversion of what ought to be the facts of the case. Instead of the strong defending and helping the weak, it is the weak that comes to the rescue of the strong on every possible occasion.
From this point of view I think no apology is necessary for the action which we propose to take by opposing by all means in our power the infamous proposals made by the Conservative Government. It is no use the Prime Minister saying what he does. He is not here. I suppose he is trying to exercise a little, bit of his sentimental powers upon some others. Although he may be able to do it with this House, he will find it is not so easy to do it with those outside and when it comes to getting down to brass tax and finance. If he were here he might be trying to persuade us to go a little more in the direction of peace, of all sides working together. You cannot do it by continuing this Bill. You are not going to get it by means of the Government proposing a Bill of this kind. So far as I am concerned the Government shall have no peace of mind, and no comfort of soul while the condition of the people remains what it is. To arrive at that peace the Government will have to pursue tactics very different to those employed in this most iniquitous Measure.

Mr. SEXTON: I shall not detain the House very long but, perhaps, I may be allowed to make some passing remarks. I want, if possible, to exert my persuasive eloquence on the right hon. Gentleman. I did it upstairs in Committee, but failed to make any headway. Having now the opportunity I am bringing some of these matters before the House to see if they will receive any more consideration they they did upstairs. May I again appeal to the Minister of Labour seriously to consider what he is doing by the suggested propos Is in this Clause 1 As my right hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mr. Shaw) has pointed out, a young man living with his parents is sponging on his parents, and the right hon. Gentleman opposite said that if he were not sponging on his parents, he would be sponging on his fellow workmen. While
he was in work he was contributing to the unemployment insurance fund, and he ought to be entitled to relief from the fund to which he has contributed.
I would ask the hon. Member opposite, whoso lines have always lain in pleasant places, what alternative the young man has who does not sponge on his parents? No self-respecting young man would do it, but he must either sponge on his parents or go on tramp. That means that he has to tramp night and day, taking advantage of Poor Law institutions, or commit a vagrancy or a felony and run the risk of being locked up. The law lays it down that you may sleep in a ditch, but if you get through a hedge to lie under a haystack, you are a trespasser, and if you pull up a turnip from a field to satisfy the pangs of hunger, you are a chief. So the only alternative the man has is to go into the first casual ward he comes to. Some of us on these benches have been there. In return for the hospitality of the soft side of a deal plank bed and of a basin of skilly in the morning, he has to perform a task of work that takes so much time that he has no opportunity to look for work elsewhere; and so he goes on and on and on, day after day, becoming an undesirable. That is what the right hon. Gentleman's Clause is assisting to do.
The next question I have to raise is in respect to short-time workers, who are among those who will be deprived of benefit. What does the right hon. Gentleman mean by the short-time worker? Why, the man with half a day's work a week. He has to pay the full amount of his contribution for unemployment insurance benefit, even though he may do only half a day s work, but because he is a short-time worker he is to be deprived of benefit. The right hon. Gentleman used a rather peculiar phrase. He spoke of "A young man living with his parents who are able to keep him." I have looked in vain through all the Acts dealing with unemployment insurance to find those words used anywhere. Supposing we take it as the right hon. Gentleman put it. I would like him to tell the House how many working-class parents are able to keep idle sons. You are making it more difficult every day, every week, every month, every year. The wages of the working classes have been reduced by £600,000,000 in three years, and the ten-
dency is for them to go down and down and down. What is the definition of "able to keep him?" Even if parents were, is it just and right and humane to expect people who are living from hand to mouth, with only a small weekly wage, to bear the extra penalty of keeping an idle son in the house? When he was in work the son was contributing to the. unemployment insurance fund.
In any well ordered State a man or woman willing to produce and to add to the wealth of the country would be an asset instead of a liability. Under present conditions many of them are a liability, deprived of the opportunity of earning a livelihood. Under the conditions prevailing to-day it is almost impossible for those of us who believe in constitutional action in this country to persuade our men that it is any use at all. Every day irritation, suspicion, aye, and rebellion are growing in this country owing to the action of the Government at present in power. The warehouses are filled, but there is no demand for the goods that have been produced, and so the workers are told to get out, because there is no work for them. They have no money to buy the food or clothes or goods that their labour has produced. I want to warn the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues of the seriousness of this question. Every step they take is making constitutional action in this country more difficult every day. We are living on the thin crust of a volcano which one of these days will burst and blow us all to blazes if we are not very careful.

Mr. TREVELYAN THOMSON: The on. Member who spoke from the other side made excuses for this unfortunate Clause on the ground that we must stick to the insurance principle in this Measure. If that be so important, why have the Government reduced the contributions? If the fund will not stand for its obligations, that is no ground for reducing contributions. Throughout its history this insurance fund never has had a chance of working on a sound actuarial basis. The 1920 Act brought in 8,000,000 of new workers, and almost immediately afterwards, as the Parliamentary Secretary has told us, a period of depression came over the country, throwing a strain on the fund which was never contemplated under the original Act. If that Act had
been founded on a sound actuarial basis, provision would have been made in it for a contribution from the State in order to provide a reserve fund to meet these exceptional obligations. The obligations are entirely abnormal, being due to the War, and therefore could not be properly reckoned as an ordinary insurance risk. It would have been perfectly sound finance for the Government to recognise the national responsibility which attaches to them and to the country owing to the abnormal unemployment, and to have made provision for it.
Apart from that, I submit that there is not the difference between standard benefit and extended benefit which hon. Members opposite seek to draw, inasmuch as in a short time, when trade becomes normal, the insured workers themselves will, by increased contributions, have paid off the deficiency which has been created. It is only a question of actuarial computation as to the increase necessary to provide for wiping off the advances made from the Treasury. Therefore I submit that this is an insurance fund, and that, apart from that, the State itself is not bearing its fair share. To make the excuse that we cannot provide these benefits because the Fund will not permit it, though having previously ordained that the contributions shall be on a lower basis than is required, is not treating the question fairly from an insurance point of view.
Apart from that, what reason is there for making this change in the 1924 Act—apart from the paltry question of finance? As the right hon. Gentleman who spoke from the Front Opposition Bench showed, it only means £400,000 a year to the Treasury. Has not the 1924 Act worked well? Have there been abuses? Has the benefit been unfairly administered or has the administration led to people not seeking work, and to some of those other evils which are sometimes foreshadowed as arising from a distribution of public money? We have had no details from the Government showing that there has been abuse in its administration. A few days ago an interesting and informative report was published by a body of economists and business men who have made a special study of the working of the Insurance Act. Two years ago they
produced a report entitled, "The Third Winter of Unemployment." A year ago they produced another report on the working of the Insurance Act, entitled, "Is Unemployment Inevitable?" and now they produce another report based on a careful investigation into the working of the Insurance Act. That report shows conclusively that it has been fairly administered, that it has not had any demoralising effect, and it has not in any way diminished the incentive to work. They made careful investigations in eight of our large cities, and found that those abuses which are sometimes feared by hon. Members on the other side had not been experienced. There is conclusive testimony that men are more anxious to keep in work than they are to seek unemployment benefit, and after that careful investigation there is complete justification for retaining the Act in its present form.
The present time, when we are approaching the fifth winter of severe unemployment, when all the resources of individuals and of localities are exhausted, is not the time to stiffen things up and make administration more difficult. An hon. Member who spoke from the other side said it was not fair to assume that there would be harshness in administration by the Minister of Labour. We all know that he and the Parliamentary Secretary are men of kindly and humane sentiments, but we have to deal with the facts as we find them, and our experience of the working of the Insurance Act, as we are brought up against it in our constituencies, shows that, despite the most sincere desire on the part of the Minister to administer the Act in a humane fashion, there are glaring cases of harshness and injustice to be found throughout the length and breadth of the land. Every week when I go down to my constituency, I am met with numerous cases of the most apparent injustices, inconceivable cases of refusal of benefit. It is no good saying that according to the Regulations this or that will not be done. We know as a fact that very severe injustice and very great hardship have been inflicted on thousands of people, and if that has been so with the discretionary power which the Minister has had under the 1924 Act, there will be more of it following the attempt he is
making now to exercise his waiver over a much larger number of cases. I submit that this is not the time to exercise this tightening up of the administration of unemployment benefit, because whatever is saved to the fund is purely a specious saving, and those who are denied benefit have to seek it from boards of guardians and local funds. I know it has been stated that they would not receive assistance from the boards of guardians, but that statement has no relation to the fact. Those in touch with their constituents know that these people do go to the boards of guardians, and those bodies are compelled to help them because they cannot allow them to starve. The fact that representations have been made to the Government from boards of guardians protesting against the curtailing of unemployment benefit under the Act shows that they fear that their local rates will be heavily mulcted by this Measure.
Appeals are being made from many local authorities in necessitous areas for some relief of the burden of the rates. We have been told how industry is being crippled by heavy rates, and appeals have been made to the Prime Minister to do something in this direction in order to relieve our struggling industries. Now we are asked to do something which will add further burdens to the local rates and place further burdens on industry. It is an exceedingly foolish thing at the present time for the Government to inflict this injustice on so very many people. The report which I have referred to, which was issued by the business men and economists who investigated the working of the Insurance Act, shows that the statement that the granting of these benefits affected the willingness to work was not true, and they found practically no cases of fraud or abuse, and the experience of the-Employment Exchanges throughout the country shows that there were very few cases of this kind in different parts of the country. In the face of that evidence I think it is simply folly, when trade is bad and likely to be worse, to seek to burden localities and individuals by proposing such a change as will be brought about by this Clause. Is it worth what will be gained by tightening up this Act when it will cause disaffection and a big sense of injustice among so many hundreds and thousands of people? It is a very foolish policy to
make these cheese-paring savings at the cost of so much injustice and discontent. The working of the Act of 1924 has been more than justified, and there has been no cause of complaint and no abuses have been brought to the notice of the House. I think in this matter the House of Commons ought to re-establish its faith and belief in the working of the Act of 1924, and not adopt the arbitrary powers which are contained in this Bill.

Mr. MARCH: I want to add my word of protest against this Bill, and I support the deletion of this Clause. We have heard from the Minister that the Government are now studying the rights of the contributors, but I would like to know from the Minister whether he has had any large body of contributors making complaints against the contributions which they are paying. We know that the employés are willing to pay their contributions to support the unemployed. It was the Government who came along and set up this- unemployment insurance without asking the workers whether they agreed with it or not. It was the Government who said you will have to pay certain contributions into this fund whether you like it or not, and they also laid down that the man who does half a day's work a week has to pay the same contribution as those who do a full week's work. Invariably it is the man who has a short time at work, and who is on casual labour, who very rarely receives the benefit he is entitled to simply because of the regulations laid down by the Government. The rules and regulations which have been made by the Government enforce contributions from these men, and then the Department seem to do their best to make Regulations in order to see that the men do not set the benefit. We have been told by the Minister this afternoon that the Minister of Labour is going to use discretion in regard to the young men who are living with their parents who are able to keep them. We have heard one or two statements as to what is likely to happen in regard to these young men. Probably if a young man has got any spirit in him at all he will not desire to stop at home to live on his parents under those conditions, and if they did they would not be living very comfortably together for long. It is quite possible that the Government have got in their mind that
there is not enough young men joining the Army, the Navy, or the Air Force, and they think this is a good way of driving young men into the Navy and the Air Force. With regard to young girls, many hon. Members opposite have said, Why not put them into domestic service? Possibly the Government may have an idea that you will drive the factory girls into service, but if you do the mistresses will very soon drive them out again because they do not know much about household duties. Then the Government are going to deal with the women who may have their husbands at work. I take it that in many households if the husband was earning sufficient money to keep the house as it ought to be kept you would not have so many married women in the factories and workshops.
If the husband happens to be earning some money an investigation and inquiry is made into the income of the household by the rota committee, and if they think that there is not enough money coming in to keep the family respectably—I do not mean in comfort by a long way, because you have to go a long way with regard to wages before many of the workers can live in comfort—and enable them to live in decency and respectability then these persons get extended benefit; but that cannot be granted until the Minister of Labour reports, and even then the Minister has power to use his discretion. The consequence is that you have weeks of waiting before the people can get this extended benefit, and invariably they are driven to the boards of guardians where there are sympathetic people administering the Poor Law, and then the boards of guardians get into trouble, not in regard to the Minister of Labour because it comes under another Department, namely, the Ministry of Health, and then the Minister of Health has a word to say. The boards of guardians are told that they must not give assistance to a young man or a young woman if there is a certain sum of money coming into the house, and all that has to be taken into consideration, and if you are not had by the Minister of Labour you are had by the Minister of Health, and the workers are had all the time. I certainly think it would be interesting to a very large number of workers if they
would only read or have the opportunity of hearing speeches like the one which has been delivered by the hon. Member for Finchley (Mr. Cadogan), because possibly a large number of workers in the Finchley district would not then be rushing to vote for their present representative. There are many districts in or around London in which there is a majority of working-class people, and if they would only read and listen to what is being said by hon. Gentlemen opposite on this subject there would not be quite so many misrepresentatives as there are on the other side of the House at the present time.
6.0 P.M.
I want to add my quota to the protest with regard to casual workers. In the district which I have the honour to represent we have large ship-repairing yards which everybody knows have been very slack for years, in fact we have had a slack time for the last four or five years. A very large number of people rushed into my constituency during the War to do work of national importance, and they were not asked to come there by the residents in my constituency. They came there because so many ships needed to be repaired and munitions were needed, and therefore we were inundated with people from every quarter to carry on the work of national importance. As soon as the Armistice was signed and there was a little quietening down, those people were thrown out of employment and they have been with us ever since, and they have been a great burden upon the district. We often heat from hon. Members that this should be made a national question. I wonder how many times the Tory party and the Liberal party when there was an Election have said in their programmes that the unemployment question was not a local but a national question, and that the nation ought to look after those people. Now he has a now idea, and it is that the nation has no right to look after these people, and they ought to be forced on to the local authorities. This has been done to such an extent that the local authorities are bitterly complaining of their burdens. The unemployment insurance was set up on your own calculations, and based upon your actuaries' reports. After all insurance is a speculation, and if the speculation happens to go badly on your side why should you impose these heavy restrictions upon the
unfortunate unemployed? You are working this on the same lines as the friendly societies. If they ask their members to pay a certain contribution they join in, and we know many of them never receive any benefit from the friendly societies at all. Nevertheless they do not grumble at those who have been unfortunate receiving benefit. Insurance is a speculation which you ought to provide for, and you have no right to deprive those who have paid their contribution of their benefits, and more especially those young men and women who were expected to come along and take the employment of the older ones. Therefore, I think this is one of the worst Clauses that could ever be introduced into a Bill, and, on behalf of the unemployed and of the constituency which I represent, I enter my emphatic protest against it.

Lieut.-Colonel POWNALL: When I heard the last speaker say that this was one of the worst Clauses that could ever be introduced into a Bill, I could not help wondering whether he remembered that this very Clause was in operation on this day last year. It was in operation until the 1st August last year, and, therefore, was in operation for six and a-half months out of the nine months, during which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Preston (Mr. T. Shaw) was Minister of Labour. During that time, we on this side did not hear anything of the arbitrary cases of discretion referred to by the right hon. Gentleman, and, in view of the fact that, if and when this Bill becomes an Act, the machinery will be similar to that which was in operation last year, I cannot help thinking that these cases of gross hardship of which we hear from hon. Gentlemen opposite are very largely figments of their own imagination. [Interruption.] All I can say is, that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Preston must have used his discretion extremely badly if those cases were so hard during that period of six and a-half months.

Mr. SHAW: May I call the attention of the hon. and gallant Member to the fact that I had to introduce a rush Bill to get rid of the gap, and that at the earliest possible moment I got rid of this discretion, which the present Government are trying to re-introduce?

Lieut.-Colonel POWNALL: That is quite true, but this Clause was, in fact, practically permanently in operation, until the 1st August last year, for the many years during which Unemployment Insurance Acts have been in force in this country. With regard to the point that was made by the hon. Member for South Poplar (Mr. March) and others, as to the nation shouldering a larger portion of the burden due to unemployment, we all of us agree that it is a national burden, but I think hon. Members opposite rather forget that, of the total of some £50,000,000 that is now being disbursed, one-fourth, in round figures, is already paid by the State, and, so far from the State trying to shirk its burdens, if hon. Members will turn to page 4 of the Actuarial Statement they will see it stated that, so long as unemployment continues at its present level, there will be a total extra contribution from the Exchequer of £3,900,000. In these times, when money is pretty hard to find, £3,900,000, on the top of some £12,000,000, is a very fair extra contribution from the State, and that, surely, is the best answer to points of that sort. May I also just make a point, which I know in a sense arises on a later part of the Bill, but which, in view of the fact that the discussion has gone over a fairly wide field, I think is material now, namely, that the reductions in the contributions from employers and employed will amount to no less than £6,800,000 when this comes into operation on the 4th January, while the amount by which the benefits are to be reduced is, in round figures, £6,500,000, so that employers and employed will be between them better off to the extent of £300,000 than if this Bill had not been introduced.

Mr. SPENCER: Have there been any representations for the Clause?

Lieut.-Colonel POWNALL: Yes; representations have been made to the Chancellor of the Exchequer with regard to the heavy burdens placed on employers and employed in connection with the pensions scheme, and this will give some measure of mitigation to employers and employed in regard to their contributions. I am much obliged to the hon. Member for having given me the chance of making that quite clear.

Mr. SPEAKER: I must point out that we are not now discussing Clause 4.

Lieut.-Colonel POWNALL: My only reason for mentioning that was that the discussion had gone over rather a wide field, and we have, of course, discussed the burden that is placed upon employers and employed. My last point is this: As is generally known, about a quarter of a million people would come out of benefit on the 30th September next unless some Bill had been brought in, and this Clause, to which so much objection is taken, will anyhow come to an end on the 30th June next year. It will, therefore, only be in force for a matter of ten and a-half months. Before that time we shall have the advantage of the Report of the Committee which is being set up, and, in view of their recommendations, modification may or may not be made in this particular Clause.

Mr. SPEAKER: Before the House proceeds further, I may mention that I have received a request from the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) to find, if possible, a place for some further points, in addition to those that I mentioned at the beginning of the proceedings to-day, and I think we ought very shortly to come to a conclusion on this particular point.

Mr. BUCHANAN: As far as that is concerned, if there is to be any limit on the discussion in consequence of any arrangement, we would rather no arrangement were made. We only wish to raise our points provided that every Member who wishes to speak on this Clause has his chance to do so.

Mr. SPEAKER: I only mention it, because it is my desire to help the House to deal with all the points on the Bill.

Mr. BUCHANAN: If there is to be any sort of limit, we on this side would rather take our chance than that anything should be done to limit in any way the opportunity of any man to speak.

Mr. LANSBURY: Have not the Government carried the suspension of the Eleven o'Clock Rule?

Mr. SPEAKER: Yes, certainly, and my remarks had reference to the possibility of a long sitting. If, to the ten points I had previously, I have now to add two
others, hon. Members will see that it will take until very long after Eleven o'Clock to cover those points.

Mr. LANSBURY: I only want to say at this moment that we all feel that this is the most awful Bill that has ever been brought before this House, and, therefore, we want to fight it just as hon. Gentlemen opposite would have fought any Bill as to which they held the same views as we hold about this Bill.

Mr. SPEAKER: I quite understand that.

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: There is, naturally, a very strong feeling among the body of people who are directly concerned in this Bill, especially in regard to such a Clause as that with which we are at present dealing. We recollect what happened under the Labour Government when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Preston (Mr. T. Shaw) had charge of these matters. I have a clear recollection of the strenuous attitude taken up by Members on the other side on this very matter, and we certainly did make out, in our view, a very strong case for the position stated a little while ago by the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. T. Thomson). Notwithstanding the view expressed by the hon. and gallant Member for East Lewisham (Lieut.-Colonel Pownall), we do not need to draw upon our imagination in regard to the hardships of these people. I think it was an unfortunate expression that was used by the hon. and gallant Member for East Lewisham. I am sure that anyone who is in close personal touch with the struggles in life's combat will know that a very small modicum of financial aid is of tremendous importance, and I say without fear of contradiction that those who are in close personal touch with these combatants in life, who have to face such tremendously adverse circumstances, are bound to realise that the situation is of a momentous character.
There has been undoubted evidence of confidence in the Committees that have adjudicated and I think the proposition put forward by the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough will be accepted, that there has been no complaint about the allocation of the benefits. The period of 10½ months to which reference
has been made includes the winter period, and, if we get a very severe winter, the conditions of which we are speaking become all the more exacting. I feel that it is hard lines to hear that phrase, which is repeated in certain circles of society, that, so long as we have this dole, we shall have people who will not want to work. I resent that very deeply, having the clearest understanding that, under our commercial system, people have been driven right down and out, have been battened down until they have lost hope, and many of them feel that it is hardly any use their making an effort at all. As a consequence, they become familiarised with the situation, and it looks to them as though it were very little use making any effort. I am not going to say that they should not still make the effort, but it is a gross injustice to make the statement to which I have referred about a body of our people in reference to whom every Member of this House ought to be able to say, from the point of view of British prestige, that our working men and women, taken together, individually or collectively, are as fine a body of people, speaking generally, as you could get in any part of the world for the purpose of carrying on our commercial and industrial activities. To malign them in that fashion is really to make an attack upon our national credit.
These people, in truth, have a claim to that defence of which we were hearing yesterday. They have a claim to ask, "Where is your home defence? Where is your provision for the defence of the hearths and the homes of the people?" If you have a million and a quarter of people who are in this appalling position, that, according to the system of the Ministry of Labour, they have to go round the gates and get that cold, bitter answer, "There is nothing for you," there is no need to draw upon the imagination in cases of that kind; there is a hardship there that you are unable personally ever to measure up unless you have gone through it yourself. You would never have been able to sustain the situation unless you had made the guarantee that in some degree or other these people were to be protected from the marauder of starvation. You would have disgraced your nation, and you would undoubtedly have brought into
operation forces which some of us certainly disagree with very strenuously, and you would have had illegal in place of constitutional action. One of the arguments of these people is this. You will never find those who represent the class interests of the nation give way because of a realistic moral issue. They will only be governed, directed and controlled by selfish commercialised interests which place paramount the interests of property and of money, as against the interests of the people who produce the necessities of life.
I want to speak for our constituency and at the same time the other industrial constituencies of the country. At present about 17,000 people are unemployed. It is only fair to say you can bring that down to 9,000 or 10,000, because 7,000 to 8,000 people are out on holidays. They have to register as unemployed, and 7,700 are registered as unemployed and have no prospect of getting anything out of the benefit. Efforts have been made in the past to try to Secure an interpretation which would enable them to get some little benefit if they are contributors to the fund still. They are returning in a week or two, and they go back with nothing from the fund. I know perfectly well, from our experience of last year, the meaning of the Clause is to effect that tightening up which was suggested as necessary by the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he made those references to which no doubt he had been directed by interests represented on the other side that there are those who by their cupidity are seeking to take advantage of the system under the Act in enabling people to obtain a benefit which, from a strict reading of it, it might be said they are not entitled to receive. Do you not think, while you are using your cupidity to obviate, if at all possible, any practical support to those who are truly struggling in the combat of life, you are only stimulating other people to use their brains to see how they can get the better of you? You are operating on such lines that they say, "We have to try to put through some sort of story in order to get a chance of getting an existence." Why cannot we have a greater recognition of the truth, as we got it yesterday in another connection, that your greatest menace is the industrial situation that faces us to-day. I feel very keenly that
you are doing a gross injustice to people who have not only a right to get out of that fund the requisite sustenance of life, but are entitled to receive something more. The nation's wealth is flaunted in the very eyes of those who are down and out. Why, in the face of such propositions in millions as you fought for and voted for yesterday, have you the audacity, as the protectors of the nation, to tell people, "We will cut you out where we can in order to economise"? God help the country if this is what you call economy.

Mr. NEIL MACLEAN: I want to join with my colleague in my expression of contempt for the Government, and the party that supports the Government, which has brought in such a Measure. The Government are making an effort to save. The whole of their economy is going to be made at the expense, as far as economy and finance are concerned, of the very worst people in the community. You are taking it in way from the people who have been out of employment for two or three years, who have exhausted the number of stamps they were able to place upon the employment book during their period of employment, and that is the type of people, battered about from post to pillar, unable to find employment, not only in the trade they have been trained in, but even casual employment, who are singled out by this Government to make an economy upon. Surely in the eyes of all right-minded and all thinking people that is the most contemptible policy that any Government ever put before the House. Why does not the Government do what the Employment Exchanges were brought into existence for, and find employment for those who are unemployed, and find workpeople for the employers who were wanting workpeople? If they the unable to find employment for the unemployed, the unemployed are entitled to unemployment benefit. That surely is a sane proposition to put forward instead of saying, "Because these people have been out of of employment for two or three years we are going to tighten up the Regulations, we are going to give the Minister of Labour greater powers than he has at present to refuse benefit to those poor unfortunate people because they cannot find employment. Because we, the Minister
of Labour and the officials of the Employment Exchanges, cannot find them employment, we are not going to give them benefit, and we will use the Regulations to cut them out of all benefit whatever."
They seem to be following out the policy of their own Prime Minister. The Prime Minister preaches a sermon—Moody and Sankey without the harmonium—appealing to us to give him peace in our time, and only to-day he tells the miners that, not only must their wages come down in the interests of the country, but the wages of other workers as well—a despicable and dastardly attempt to reduce the standard of living of the people. He ought to be ashamed to come to the House and face people with the word of the Lord in his mouth, as he uses it in this House. Reduce wages. We cannot carry on production unless we reduce wages. Extend working hours. We must have more production. Cut the money off the unemployed because we must have more money to carry on the Government, to build warships and for other purposes—Mesopotamia, Iraq, financing some cotton-growing plantation company that we are subsidising, finding money for everything but the people who have produced the wealth of the country and made that wealth possible. The Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of Labour said that for us to speak of hardships was a figment of the imagination. It is well seen that he does not represent an industrial constituency. In my constituency we have had as many as 7,000 unemployed workers, male and female, on the books at one time out of a population of 70,000. I could have taken Members of this House—this is not sobstuff—into the homes of decent working people, men who were respectable, men who were not profligate either in morals or in any other way, women who, with small incomes coming in when the husband was unemployed, had done everything they could to bring up the family respectably and keep a decent home. I could have shown them sights in those homes which would have made their hearts bleed with pity for those who had to undergo the torture those people were undergoing. A figment of the imagination! I would to God some Members on the other side had gone through some of
the hell that working people are going through just now. They would be more appreciative of some of the attempts we are making to get better conditions for our people.
The Private Secretary probably knows what is in the mind of the Minister of Labour and his Parliamentary Secretary, but he does not know what is going on in the country. He may know what is going on in the offices in London, in the business centre, in the financial undertakings, but he does not know what is going on in the homes of the people or in the minds of the people. When the War ended you extended benefit to people who had never contributed. The allowance you gave was 29s. a week. Why? Because you were afraid when the men came out of the Army and found no employment and no money coming in, they would use the guns and the training; you had given them to get something they thought they had fought for. To stave off the possibility of that you threw 29s, at them, for which many of them never paid. Now you are asking power to take from people the right to benefit which they possess because they have paid into the fund. It is true undoubtedly that some of these people have exhausted their benefit. What of that? Have not their contributions helped to build up the fund that kept others going during previous periods? If they were helping others is it not right and proper that now, in their hour of distress, the country should help them? They are out because they have no stamps to their credit. They are cut out of benefit because, in the opinion of the Minister, a man 62 years of age is not likely to be again employed in insurable occupation. There are men 70 years of age who would be employed to-morrow in the shipyards, because of their experience and skill, if there were vacancies for them. I know a case of a man who was refused benefit because he was not likely to be insured again in insurable occupation. While I was fighting his case with the Minister, the man who was supposed not to be employable got a job in one of the shipyards. When we get Ministers exercising discretionary powers which show such lack of discretion, it is no wonder that we refuse to give them further powers.
Hon. Members try to make out that some people who get money from the Employment Exchange will not look for
work. The unemployment benefit is such a magnificent sum that large masses of workers prefer taking the benefit to finding work. You did not say that about them during the War. You did not malign their characters then. Now, they are defrauders of public funds, loafers, men who are sponging upon the community. Where are the spongers? Not in the Employment Exchanges, not drawing unemployment benefit, but here in the heart of London, down in the Smoke Room of this House, on the benches opposite. They are the spongers of society, the men who spend more in a week than a working-class family spend in a whole year. If some of the hon. Members opposite had to earn a living by the sweat of their brow, they would starve the first day.
I hope the people of this country will show this Government, who think they are going to last for five years. They have a great majority behind them—they are not behind it at the present moment, but on the Terrace—who will go into the Lobby—a silent majority, a majority that is dumb, a majority that votes because they have come in here as Conservatives, and are influenced neither by their heads nor their hearts, but by their feet—to vote down the rights of the people outside who are more decent than, or at least as decent as any person on the other side. I hope the people will show, as they did in the Forest of Dean, at any bye-election, what they think of the present Government. You can crush the people down to a certain depth, but there comes a time when even the great majority that this Tory Government possesses will not be able to save them from the wrath of the people they are crushing. In every Division that takes place on this Bill, I shall go into the Lobby gladly, voting against the principles of this Bill, voting against this dastardly attempt to deprive the people of their rights, voting against the despicable character of the Bill in the interests of the people I represent, and also because I believe that the Government that has brought it in is the meanest, the most lying, the most unscrupulous and dastardly Government that has ever disgraced the records of political history in this country.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I have listened to speeches from the other side which made some attempt to defend the Clause. I
want the House to realise the meaning of the Clause. The Minister of Labour, in dealing with this Clause, originally said that he intended it mainly to deal with two classes. In the first case, young men living with their parents who are in receipt of an income, were to be disqualified from receiving extended benefit. The second class were married women living with their husbands who might be in employment. I oppose this Clause because I have always been an opponent of State bureaucratic methods. We are always challenged that we stand for Socialism, for nationalisation, and, therefore, for the power of the State bureaucrat as against the rights of the individual. This Clause means placing the lives of tens of thousands of people under the State bureaucrat in the Employment Exchange.
I will give, as an instance, a case which I brought before the Parliamentary Secretary's predecessor in the last Conservative Government. It was a case of two lads in Scotland who lived next door to each other. The father of one of the lads worked under the Glasgow Corporation, and the father of the other lad was a guest of His Majesty in one of the prisons. The two lads were working more or less in the same occupation, and more or less they were out of work at the same time. When they applied at the Employment Exchange, the State bureaucrat said to one of the lads, "What does your father earn?" He replied, "My father is a decent man; he earns wages week in and week out." The other boy said, "My father is in prison." What defence can there be for a provision which says that if your father is decent and works week in and week out, you will get no benefit, while, on the other hand, if your father is a criminal and costing the State money, you must be given benefit from the Employment Exchange?
Why should a person because he has a decent father or mother be penalised, or why should he be penalised for his parents' bad qualities? This Clause is an attempt, in dealing with young men, to make conditions that no decent person would defend. I remember when I was fighting my first election, the Tory bills on the hoardings said, "Down with the Socialist, the man who is going to ruin the home!"
This Clause means that if a person puts his son out of the house, and makes him live in a model lodging house, that son will become qualified for benefit, because he is not in receipt of income from the family; but, if he is retained under parental control, and kept in the family, he is penalised. This Bill and this Clause are bad, because every son of a decent man will be penalised in the way I have suggested. I do not say that the man should be penalised because he has bad parents. No person, man or woman, ought to be penalised because of their parents.
I listened to one hon. Member who spoke about spongers on the Unemployment Fund. It may be true that there are people who are bad, but, if we take the proportion of people who are bad among the unemployed, and the proportion of bad Members in this House, the unemployed are equal to, if not better than, the average Member here. Take the case the other week in the Divorce Court, when members of the same class to which hon. Members opposite belong were mixed up with filth that the unemployed man would be ashamed to be associated with. The Parliamentary Secretary may have boys and girls of his own growing up. Those for whom I speak were boys and girls a few years ago, and their parents gave them as many good things as they could afford. How would he like his children to be injured or penalised or refused benefit because of his character, good, bad or indifferent? He comes here and he supports a proposal which will rob the poor, and the men who do that, the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister of Labour himself, are contemptible people, who have no right to be here.

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must address me, and should remember that we must give credit to one another in all parts of the House for honesty of purpose, however much we may disagree as to the proposals brought forward.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I did so for a long while in this House. When the new Government came in, I was the first to raise the question of Unemployment Benefit. At that time, I gave the-Minister of Labour and the Parliamentary Secretary credit for good intentions, and for having hearts as good as
ours. But take their actions since. Take their Bills. It is not what we think, but it is our actions that matter. Take their actions in this Bill. They are depriving decent people of benefit. I put it to you, Mr. Speaker: What would you think of me if I came along, well fed, and I deprived another Member of his legitimate rights? You would think I was contemptible, a mean man. When a well-fed man, a comfortable man comes along to deprive poor people of the means of life, I cannot give expression to a bad enough phrase to convey my opinion of that man. This Bill and this Clause not only hit the poor man, but the whole family. It is handing over to the Employment Exchanges, the bureaucrats, undue power. The Committees do not judge the cases. When the man is asked about his parent's conditions, and he states them, the official turns round to his clerk or his inspector and says, "Do you find that this man's home is as he states it?" If the young man has drawn all his standard benefit and he comes under extended benefit, his home, his parent's home, has to be open to inspectors from the Employment Exchange, so that they can go in and find out everything about his parent's income. If they are not allowed to go in and examine into everything, the man is automatically disqualified, because he has not allowed them access to the information. That is the stage at which we are now.
It was argued by a Member who occupies the position of Parliamentary Private Secretary that this provision was in operation for six and a-half months. Well, at least we took it away at the end of that time, but now the Government are taking away what was given by the Act passed last year. I understood that the object of every Minister was to make things better, but the object of his Bill is to make things worse. If the working people could have driven half as much terror into their hearts as they did in 1918 and 1919, this provision would not have been introduced, because argument here does not matter. The only thing that matters to them is terror. If the working people of this country could make the lives of the Minister of Labour and the Parliamentary Secretary a burden, and make them live in daily fear, if they could make the Prime Minister not talk peace but live in mortal
terror with his colleagues, the unemployed would be decently treated. When you talk about these young men sponging, I look at the great places, the palaces, the royal homes of the rich, and I read of Princes touring abroad at the present time, of Kings with their £70,000, and if I had the choice between the poor unemployed and the rich spongers who are in the Royal family—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order!"]

Mr. GRIFFITHS: I feel greatly concerned about this Clause, especially when I consider that in my constituency alone in one district you have ail the pits idle. What is going to become of these people under this Clause? In my constituency ever since 1921 there has been a large number of miners who have been victimised, miners whose places will never be open to them again. The Parliamentary Secretary paid a big compliment to the rota committees; but when the rota committee decides that these people are entitled to unemployment benefit, the Minister has actually turned them down. I have been in touch with the Minister myself in reference to several cases where the rota committee decided that these people are entitled to benefit, and yet the Minister, on his own discretion, has been turning these cases down. The Minister of Labour, in introducing this Bill, gave two descriptions of the men who were to receive standard benefit and those who were to receive extended benfit. The men who received the standard benefit were the men with money in their pockets. They were able to go into the shop and pay their money down on the counter for the goods which they ordered from this shopkeeper. But the extended benefit meant that the men had to go to the shop and order things on credit. What is going to become of the poor devils who are not going to get standard benefit or extended benefit? [HON. MEMBERS: "The Poor Law!"] These are the people who will be affected mostly by this provision.
So far as the young men of 18 are concerned, they have not only contributed towards unemployment insurance but also fur unemployment benefit through their trade union. If a young man is entitled to benefit but his parents are in a very decent position, the Parliamentary Secretary is going to claim discretionary power in order to prevent him getting his benefit.
Suppose the trade union did exactly the same, the result would be resolutions from every branch of the trade union movement asking the executive why this man was deprived of benefit for which he was paying. The young man pays for this insurance benefit, exactly as he pays for the trade union benefit, and if the trade union fund is going down at all it is going to collapse after they have meted out justice In everybody who has contributed. Why cannot you do the same to these men? If the fund is going to collapse at all, let all collapse together. Do not penalise the parents of these boys simply because they have looked after themselves and are in a decent position. It is the most disgraceful Clause which I have ever seen in any Bill, and I shall vote against it. It is iniquitous and unjust to treat the people who are already downtrodden in the way in which this Bill is going to treat them.

Captain WEDGWOOD BENN: May I point out that the circumstances of the moment have altered entirely the character of the powers which the Minister has under this Clause? We do not know yet what the result of pending negotiations may be, but it may be that instead of being faced with the million and a-half unemployed whom we had last week—I am not speaking about miners—we may be faced in other trades with an enormous increase in the number of unemployed. These people will look to the fund to which they have contributed for years. We know that the Minister has introduced this Clause with a definite intention; that is, to save so much money. We do not know how much it is; but, if he is going to save the finances of this scheme—because this is merely a financial Measure; it is merely a way of screwing out of the unemployed a certain amount to support the fund—he will, if these unhappy events which we fear materialise, be compelled to use the powers under this Clause far more drastically than has been suspected hitherto. That added consideration must give us all very serious cause to pause. If it is intended to make the Clause effective financially and to save the money which it was intended to save, then, in view of the circumstances that may arise, the Minister will be compelled to use these powers not merely in the very mean way in which they were
to be used, but in a drastic way which will cause very widespread and very undeserved hardship.

Mr. KELLY: Had there been some justification by the Government for this discretion being given to the Minister, I might have given a silent vote on this occasion. I have listened to the discussion when the Bill was introduced and in Committee, and I have listened to the hon. Gentleman this afternoon, and he has not given one word of justification for this discretion being handed over to him. I have wondered whether he was going to tell us that, by the rigidity of the Measure already in existence, his officers were not able to prevent people who were not entitled receiving the benefit, but I can assure the House that his officers are so severe in their regulation of the Act at this particular time, and have been in the past, that there is no justification for this discretion being given to the Minister. I have known of cases, even of standard benefit, which the Minister and his advisers might have let through.
I will quote only one case to show how severe his advisers and officers are in preventing people from receiving unemployment benefit, unless they can prove their case. It is the case of a man in Huddersfield who, because he received 4d. on a particular day for helping a man to push a heavy load up a steep street, was deprived of his benefit. The man had signed in the Exchange and was standing on the pavement, when he saw this other individual endeavouring to take a great load up a steep street, and, because he gave a lift to that man and that man compensated him to the extent of 4d., the advisers of the hon. Gentleman appealed against the man having any benefit, on the ground that he had worked on that particular day. They were not satisfied when they went before the Court of Referees, and they actually took the matter before the Umpire, and the case was declared against us. The people who will advise the Minister as to the exercise of the discretion for which he is now asking, are the people who advised him in this case.
With reference to the trades of this country with which we are dealing at this moment, which were referred to by the hon. and gallant Member for Leith
(Captain W. Benn) the people unemployed in the engineering trade, the mining trade, and many other trades, is it because they are unable to find employment that the Minister is going to use his discretion if they are living at home? It is not only young men who are living at home with their parents. Does the Minister intend to take the benefit away from them? The Parliamentary Secretary and his chief have appealed to the employers and trade unionists to help them in the matter of the young people who are being placed in employment. They know the struggle that the parents of those young people have in maintaining their young people. Does the right

hon. Gentleman intend now, after fighting with us as he has been fighting, to secure some payment to those people, to take away all the benefits from those young people who are entering upon their industrial and commercial life? There has not been one point put up which would justify us in supporting this Clause, and I hope the House will not give the Government the Clause it is asking for.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out, to the word "have," in line 9, stand part of the Bill."

The House divided: Ayes, 244; Noes, 141.

Division No. 326.]
AYES.
[7.1 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.
Homan, C. W. J.


Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.
Curzon, Captain Viscount
Hopkins, J. W. W.


Allen, J. Sandeman (L'pool, W. Derby)
Daiziel, Sir Davison
Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Davidson, J. (Hertf'd, Hemel Hempst'd)
Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N.


Applin, Colonel R. V. K.
Davidson. Major-General Sir J. H.
Horne, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.


Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.
Davies, A. V. (Lancaster, Royton)
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)


Atholl, Duchess of
Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Hudson, R. S. (Cumberl'nd, Whiteh'n)


Atkinson, C.
Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)
Hume, Sir G. H.


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Dawson, Sir Philip
Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis


Banks, Reginald Mitchell
Dean, Arthur Wellesley
Hunter-Weston. Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Doyle, Sir N. Grattan
Hurst, Gerald B.


Barnett, Major Sir Richard
Drewe, C.
Hutchison, G. A. Clark (Midl'n & P'bl's)


Barnston, Major Sir Harry
Edmondson, Major A. J.
Jacob, A. E.


Beamish, Captain T. p. H.
Elliot, Captain Walter E.
James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert


Beckett, Sir Gervase (Leeds, N.)
Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.)
Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Everard, W. Lindsay
Joynson-Hicks, Rt. Hon. Sir William


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Falle, Sir Bertram G.
Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)


Bethell, A.
Fanshawe, Commander G. D.
Kidd, J. (Linlithgow)


Betterton, Henry B.
Fielden, E. B.
King, Captain Henry Douglas


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Finburgh, S.
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement


Bird, Sir R. B. (Wolverhampton, W.)
Fleming, D P.
Lane-Fox, Colonel George R.


Blades, Sir George Rowland
Ford, P. J.
Leigh, Sir John (Clapham)


Blundell, F. N.
Forestier-Walker, Sir L.
Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip


Boothby, R. J. G.
Foster, Sir Harry S.
Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)


Bourne, Captain Robert Croft
Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Loder, J. de V.


Bowater, Sir T. Vansittart
Galbraith, J. F. W.
Lord, Walter Greaves-


Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.
Ganzoni, Sir John
Lougher, L.


Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham
Luce, Major-Gen. Sir Richard Harman


Briscoe, Richard George
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Lumley, L. R.


Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I
Glyn, Major R. G. C.
Lynn, Sir R. J.


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y)
Goff, Sir Park
MacAndrew, Charles Glen


Buckingham, Sir H.
Grant, J. A.
Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)


Bullock, Captain M.
Greene, W. P. Crawford
Macdonald, R. (Glasgow, Cathcart)


Burman, J. B.
Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Sir H. (W'th's'w, E)
McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus


Burney, Lieut.-Com. Charles D.
Gretton, Colonel John
McLean, Major A.


Burton, Colonel H. W.
Grotrian, H. Brent
Macmillan, Captain H.


Butler, Sir Geoffrey
Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.
Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm


Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward
Gunston, Captain D. W.
McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John


Campbell, E. T.
Hall, Vice-Admiral Sir R. (Eastbourne)
MacRobert, Alexander M.


Cassels, J. D.
Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.)
Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
Hanbury, C.
Malone, Major P. B.


Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Marriott, Sir J. A. R.


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Birm., W.)
Harland, A.
Mason, Lieut.-Colonel Glyn K.


Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N (Ladywood)
Harrison, G. J. C.
Meller, R. J.


Charteris, Brigadier-General J.
Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)
Merriman, F. B.


Chilcott, Sir Warden
Haslam, Henry C.
Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)


Christle, J. A.
Hawke, John Anthony
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)


Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer
Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.


Clarry, Reginald George
Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd, Henley)
Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)


Clayton, G. C.
Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)
Moore, Sir Newton J.


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Heneage, Lieut.-Col. Arthur P.
Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C.


Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.
Henn, Sir Sydney H.
Morrison, H. (Wilts, Sailsbury)


Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.
Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)
Nelson, Sir Frank


Cope, Major William
Herbert, S. (York, N. R., Scar. & Wh'by)
Neville, R. J.


Courthope, Lieut.-Col. Sir George L.
Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)


Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry
Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone)
Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert


Nuttall, Ellis
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)
Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W. Mitchell-


O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton)
Sandeman, A. Stewart
Tinne, J. A.


O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh
Sanderson, Sir Frank
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William
Sandon, Lord
Wallace, Captain D. E.


Peto, Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)
Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.
Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L. (Kingston-on-Hull)


Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)
Scott, Sir Leslie (Liverp'l, Exchange)
Waterhouse, Captain Charles


Pilcher, G.
Sheffield, Sir Berkeley
Watts, Dr. T.


Pilditch, Sir Philip
Shepperson, E. W.
Wells, S. R.


Power, Sir John Cecil
Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)
White, Lieut.-Colonel G. Dairymple


Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton
Slaney, Major P. Kenyon
Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)


Price, Major C. W. M.
Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfast)
Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield)


Raine, W.
Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Ramsden, E.
Smithers, Waldron
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Rawlinson, Rt. Hon. John Fredk. Peel
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Wise, Sir Fredric


Rawson, Alfred Cooper
Spender Clay, Colonel H.
Womersley, W. J.


Reid, D. D. (County Down)
Sprot, Sir Alexander
Wood, Rt. Hon. E. (York, W. R., Ripon)


Rentoul, G. S.
Stanley, Lord (Fylde)
Wood, E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'dge & Hyde)


Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.
Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Will'sden, E.)
Woodcock, Colonel H. C.


Rice, Sir Frederick
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland)
Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)
Steel, Major Samuel Strang
Wragg, Herbert


Roberts, E. H. G. (Flint)
Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.
Young, E. Hilton (Norwich)


Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)
Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C.



Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs., Stretford)
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Ropner, Major L.
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid
Captain Douglas Hacking and


Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.
Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)
Captain Margesson.


Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)



NOES.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)
Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley)
Salter, Dr. Alfred


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Scrymgeour, E.


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')
Hirst, G. H.
Scurr, John


Ammon, Charles George
Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)
Sexton, James


Attlee, Clement Richard
Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)


Baker, Walter
Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)
Sitch, Charles H.


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Slesser, Sir Henry H.


Barr, J.
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Smillie, Robert


Batey, Joseph
Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)
Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)


Beckett, John (Gateshead)
Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Slivertown)
Smith, H. B. Lees- (Keighley)


Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Smith, Rennie (Penistone)


Bromley, J.
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Sneil, Harry


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Kelly, W. T.
Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip


Buchanan, G.
Kennedy, T.
Spencer, George A. (Broxtowe)


Cape, Thomas
Kenyon, Barnet
Stamford, T. W.


Charleton, H. C.
Kirkwood, D.
Stephen, Campbell


Clowes, S.
Lansbury, George
Sutton, J. E.


Cluse, W. S.
Lawson, John James
Taylor, R. A.


Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.
Lee, F.
Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)


Collins Sir Godfrey (Greenock)
Livingstone, A. M.
Thomson, Trevelyan (Middlesbro, W.)


Compton, Joseph
Lowth, T.
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)


Cove, W. G.
Lunn, William
Thurtle, E.


Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Aberavon)
Tinker, John Joseph


Crawfurd, H. E.
Mackinder, W.
Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.


Dalton, Hugh
MacLaren, Andrew
Varley, Frank B.


Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)
Viant, S. P.


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
March, S.
Wallhead, Richard C.


Day, Colonel Harry
Maxton, James
Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen


Duncan, C.
Mortague, Frederick
Warne, G. H.


Dunnico, H.
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


Edwards, John H. (Accrington)
Murnin, H.
Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)


Forrest, W.
Naylor, T. E.
Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah


Gibbins, Joseph
O'Connor, Thomas P.
Welsh, J. C.


Gillett, George M.
Oliver, George Harold
Westwood, J.


Gosling, Harry
Paling, w.
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.


Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)
Whiteley, W.


Greenall, T.
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.
Wilkinson, Ellen C.


Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)
Ponsonby, Arthur
Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)


Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
Potts, John S.
Williams, David (Swansea, E.)


Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Purcell, A. A.
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Groves, T.
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)


Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)
Riley, Ben
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Ritson, J.
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Hardie, George D.
Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Bromwich)
Windsor, Walter


Harris, Percy A.
Robertson, J. (Lanark, Bothwell)
Wright, W.


Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon
Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W.R., Elland)



Hayday, Arthur
Rose, Frank H.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Hayes, John Henry
Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter
Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr. A.




Barnes.

Mr. CHARLETON: I beg to move in page 1, line 9, after the word "shall, to insert the words
as from the first day of April, nineteen hundred and twenty-six.
As I understand that the Debate which has taken place is intended to cover this
Amendment, I formally move it, and regret that I am not allowed to say what I would have liked to say.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: I beg to second the Amendment.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted in the Bill."

The House divided: Ayes, 139; Noes, 244.

Division No. 327.]
AYES.
[7.12p.m.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)
Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley)
Scurr, John


Adamson, W. M. (Staff, Cannock)
Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Sexton, James


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')
Hirst, G. H.
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)


Ammon, Charles George
Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)
Sitch, Charles H.


Attlee, Clement Richard
Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)
Slesser, Sir Henry H.


Baker, Walter
Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)
Smillie, Robert


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)


Barr, J.
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Smith, H. B. Lees- (Keighley)


Batey, Joseph
Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)
Smith, Rennie (Penistone)


Beckett, John (Gateshead)
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Snell, Harry


Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip


Bird, Sir R. B. (Wolverhampton, W.)
Kelly, W. T.
Spencer, George A. (Broxtowe)


Bromley, J.
Kennedy, T.
Stamford, T. W.


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Kenyon, Barnet
Stephen, Campbell


Buchanan, G.
Kirkwood, D.
Sutton, J. E.


Cape, Thomas
Lansbury, George
Taylor, R. A.


Charleton, H. C.
Lawson, John James
Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)


Clowes, S.
Lee, F.
Thomson, Trevelyan (Middlesbro, W.)


Cluse, W. S.
Livingstone, A. M.
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)


Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.
Lowth, T.
Thurtle, E.


Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)
Lunn, William
Tinker, John Joseph


Compton, Joseph
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Aberavon)
Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.


Cove, W. G.
Mackinder, w.
Varley, Frank B.


Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)
MacLaren, Andrew
Viant, S. P.


Crawfurd, H. E.
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)
Wallhead, Richard C.


Dalton, Hugh
March, S.
Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen


Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)
Maxton, James
Warne, G. H.


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Montague, Frederick
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


Day, Colonel Harry
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)


Duncan, C.
Murnin, H.
Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah


Dunnico, H.
Naylor, T. E.
Welsh, J. C.


Edwards, John H. (Accrington)
O'Connor, Thomas P.
Westwood, J.


Forrest, W.
Oliver, George Harold
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.


Gibbins, Joseph
Paling, W.
Whiteley, W.


Gillett, George M.
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)
Wilkinson, Ellen C.


Gosling, Harry
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.
Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)


Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Ponsonby, Arthur
Williams, David (Swansea, E.)


Greenall, T.
Potts, John S.
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)
Purcell, A. A.
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)


Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Groves, T.
Ritson, J.
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)
Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Bromwich)
Windsor, Walter


Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Robertson, J. (Lanark, Bothwell)
Wright, W.


Hardie, George D.
Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W.R., Elland)



Harris, Percy A.
Rose, Frank H.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon
Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter
Mr. A. Barnes and Mr. Charles


Hayday, Arthur
Salter, Dr. Alfred
Edwards.


Hayes, John Henry
Scrymgeour, E.



NOES.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Blundell, F. N.
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)


Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.
Boothby, R. J. G.
Chapman, Sir S.


Ainsworth, Major Charles
Bourne, Captain Robert Croft
Charteris, Brigadier-General J.


Allen, J. Sandeman (L'pool, W. Derby)
Bowater, Sir T. Vansittart
Chilcott, Sir Warden


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.
Christie, J. A.


Applin, Colonel R. V. K.
Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer


Ashley, Lt.-Cot. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.
Briscoe, Richard George
Clarry, Reginald George


Atholl, Duchess of
Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.
Clayton, G. C.


Atkinson, C.
Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y)
Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Buckingham, Sir H.
Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.


Banks, Reginald Mitchell
Bullock, Captain M.
Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Burman, J. B.
Conway, Sir W. Martin


Barnett, Major Sir Richard
Burney, Lieut.-Com. Charles D.
Cope, Major William


Barnston, Major Sir Harry
Burton, Colonel H. W.
Courthope, Lieut.-Col. Sir George L.


Beamish, Captain T. P. H.
Butler, Sir Geoffrey
Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry


Beckett, Sir Gervase (Leeds, N.)
Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward
Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Campbell, E. T.
Curzon, Captain Viscount


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Cassels, J. D.
Dalziel, Sir Davison


Bethell, A.
Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
Davidson, J. (Hertf'd, Hemel Hempst'd)


Betterton, Henry B.
Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton
Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.


Blades, Sir George Rowland
Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Birm., W).
Davies, A. V. (Lancaster, Royton)


Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Hutchison, G. A. Clark (Midl'n & P'bl's)
Rawlinson, Rt. Hon. John Fredk. Peel


Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)
Jacob, A. E.
Rawson, Alfred Cooper


Dawson, Sir Philip
James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert
Reid, D. D. (County Down)


Dean, Arthur Wellesley
Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)
Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.


Doyle, Sir N. Grattan
Joynson-Hicks, Rt. Hon. Sir William
Rice, Sir Frederick


Drewe, C.
Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)
Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)


Edmondson, Major A. J.
Kidd, J. (Linlithgow)
Roberts, E. H. G. (Flint)


Elliot, Captain Walter E.
King, Captain Henry Douglas
Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)


Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.)
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs., Stretford)


Everard, W. Lindsay
Lane-Fox, Colonel George R.
Ropner, Major L.


Falle, Sir Bertram G.
Leigh, Sir John (Clapham)
Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.


Fanshawe, Commander G. D.
Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Fielden, E. B.
Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)


Finburgh, S.
Loder, J. de V.
Sandeman, A. Stewart


Fleming, D. P.
Lord, Walter Greaves-
Sanderson, Sir Frank


Ford, P. J.
Lougher, L.
Sandon, Lord


Forestier-Walker, Sir L.
Luce, Major-Gen. Sir Richard Harman
Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.


Foster, Sir Harry S.
Lumley, L. R.
Scott, Sir Leslie (Liverp'l, Exchange)


Foxcroft, Captain C. T.
Lynn, Sir R. J.
Sheffield, Sir Berkeley


Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
MacAndrew, Charles Glen
Shepperson, E. W.


Galbraith, J. F. W.
Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)
Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)


Ganzoni, Sir John
Macdonald, R. (Glasgow, Cathcart)
Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfast)


Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham
McDonnell Colonel Hon. Angus
Slaney, Major P. Kenyon


Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
McLean, Major A.
Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)


Glyn, Major R. G. C.
Macmillan, Captain H.
Smithers, Waldron


Goff, Sir Park
Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)


Greene, W. P. Crawford
McNeill, Rt. Hon Ronald John
Spender Clay Colonel H.


Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Sir H. (W'th's'w, E)
MacRobert, Alexander M.
Sport, Sir Alexander


Gretton, Colonel John
Maitland Sir Arthur D. Steel-
Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Will'sden, E.)


Grotrian, H. Brent
Malone, Major P. B.
Stanley, Lord (Fylde)


Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E
Margesson, Capt. D.
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland)


Gunston, Captain D. W.
Marriott, Sir J. A. R.
Steel, Major Samuel Strang


Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Mason, Lieut.-Col. Glyn K.
Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.


Hall, Vice-Admiral Sir R. (Eastbourne)
Meller, R. J.
Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C.


Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.)

Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Hanbury, C
Merriman, F. B.
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid


Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)
Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)


Harland, A.
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)
Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W. Mitchell-


Harrison, G. J. C.
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.
Tinne, J. A.


Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)
Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Haslam, Henry C
Moore, Sir Newton J.
Wallace, Captain D. E.


Hawke John Anthony
Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C.
Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L. (Kingston-on-Hull)


Headlam Lieut.-Colonel C. M.
Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)
Waterhouse, Captain Charles


Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd, Henley)
Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive
Watts, Dr. T.


Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)
Nelson, Sir Frank
Wells, S. R.


Heneage, Lieut.-Col. Arthur P.
Neville, R. J.
White, Lieut.-Colonel G. Dairymple


Henn, Sir Sydney H.
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)


Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)
Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert
Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield)


Herbert, S. (York, N. R., Scar. & Wh'by)
Nuttall, Ellis
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.
Oakley, T.
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone)
O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton)
Wise, Sir Fredric


Homan, C. W. J.
O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh
Womersley, W. J.


Hopkins, J. W. W.
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William
Wood, Rt. Hon. E. (York, W. R., Ripon)


Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)
Peto, Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)
Wood, E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'ge & Hyde)


Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N.
Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)
Woodcock, Colonel H. C.


Horne, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.
Pilcher, G.
Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Pilditch, Sir Philip
Wragg, Herbert


Hudson, R. S. (Cumberl'and, Whiteh'n)
Power, Sir John Cecil
Young, E. Hilton (Norwich)


Hume, Sir G. H.
Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton



Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis
Price, Major C. W. M.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer
Raine, W.
Major Hennessy and Mr. F. C.


Hurst, Gerald B.
Ramsden, E.
Thomson.

Mr. GEORGE HALL: I beg to move, in page 1, line 14, at the end, to insert the words
and as though the words 'if in addition to satisfying the requirements aforesaid he also proves' and the words following to the end of the Sub-section were omitted.
The importance of this Amendment can only be seen by hon. Members if they refer to the 1924 Unemployment Insurance (No. 2) Act. Sub-section (3) of Section 1 of that Act, which deals with the Regulations governing the work of the rota committees and the payment of benefit to a number of the unemployed
men who have to appear before those committees, is the Sub-section in question. It is as follows:
If an applicant for benefit in whose case the requirements of subsection (1) of this section are fulfilled is not entitled thereto under the provisions of the last preceding Sub-section, by reason either that the number of contributions paid in respect of him within the period therein mentioned is less than twenty, or that sufficient contributions are not standing to his credit or that he has already received benefit, for periods amounting in the aggregate to twenty-six weeks in the benefit year in which the application is made, he shall nevertheless be entitled to receive benefit
if in addition to satisfying the requirements aforesaid he also proves—

(a) that he is normally employed in such employment as would make him an employed person within the meaning of the principal Act (in this Act referred to as "insurable employment"), and will normally seek to obtain his livelihood by means of insurable employment;
(b) that in normal times insurable employment suited to his capacities would be likely to be available for him;
(c) that he has, during the two years immediately preceding the date of the application for benefit, been employed in an insurable employment to such an extent as was reasonable, having regard to all the circumstances of the case and in particular to the opportunities for obtaining insurable employment during that period;
(d) that he is making every reasonable effort to obtain employment suited to his capacities and is willing to accept such employment."
The Amendment asks for the insertion in this Bill of the words contained upon the Order Paper and the deletion of paragraphs (a), (b), (c) and (d) of the Sub-section of the Act I have quoted. The Bill which we are now considering is the fifteenth Unemployment Bill introduced during the last nine years, and as it has already been described, this Clause is one of the worst Clauses of a very bad Bi]]. It is really a combination of two Sections which we regard as the very worst Sections of the 1923 and 1924 Acts. The 1924 Act took away the discretionary power of the Minister, and, in taking away that power, it inserted the Subsection which I have read out and which was for the purpose of tightening up the administration. As this Clause seeks to restore to the Minister that discretionary power, we ask that this Bill should be placed in the same position as the 1923 Act. The whole purpose of this and other Clauses of the Bill is to save money.
I am not going to deal with the attitude of the Chancellor of the Exchequer or with the purpose of some of the worst Clauses of the Bill. One could easily describe this as a second baby handed on, not to the Ministry of Health, but to the Ministry of Labour. It is solely for the purpose of saving the face of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the light of the new Pensions Bill. As we are giving this discretionary power to the Minister, we ask that he should accept this Amendment
and place himself in the same position as that which he occupied previously Whatever the grounds were for the inclusion of this provision in the 1924 Act, it has turned out from the actual working of that Act that it has been used for a purpose quite different from that which was intended, and I am sure that hon. Members will agree that in view of the situation instead of tightening up the administration of the Act, there should be a little easing off. Every hon. Member has had brought to his notice individual cases with regard to the working of this Sub-section, and while it really was given as an instruction to the rota committee and while the rota committees have tried to carry-out the spirit of the Sub-section, unfortunately the Ministry through their officers have so interfered that even the rota committees' opinions are not taken in connection with this question.
I have a case which shows how it affects a number of men who are genuinely unemployed and seeking work. It is the case of a man who was employed as a craftsman at a colliery for something like, 35 years and who, as a craftsman, was insured against unemployment from 1912 till 1922. In 1922 he left his insurable employment and went into business for 18 months or two years. At the end of that period he gave up business and again entered insurable employment. Unfortunately, he could not get regular employment, and he had only eight or nine stamps to his credit. He appeared before the rota committee, and the committee said he was entitled to benefit even under this Sub-section, but the insurance officer intervened, with the result that the decision of the rota committee was turned down, and this man for some time was deprived of benefit. The Sub-section is full of anomalies such as this, and, if we can delete it, a better chance of obtaining the benefit to which they are entitled will be given to men who are willing to work but unable to find it.
We claim that whatever money is saved as a result of Clause I of the Bill is simply going to be saved to the Insurance Fund, and the burden is going to be passed on to the local authorities. I come from an area where the local authority has been suffering and the Poor Law administration has almost broken down.
The rates are between 24s. and 25s. in the £, and they have been as high as 30s., and this is very largely the result of the local rates being used for the maintenance of people who should be entitled to the unemployment benefit. Taking the amount of Poor Law payments in 1913–14, we find that the amount of Poor Law relief paid by local authorities in this country was then nearly £15,000,000. In 1924 it had increased to something like £38,000,000. I would also refer hon. Members to the Report of the Minister of Health dealing specifically with the grams of loans to local authorities to assist them ever difficult periods in such centres as Merthyr, Middlesbrough—so ably represented by my hon. Friend the Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. T. Thomson)—and quite a large number of other necessitous areas. I would draw attention for a moment to the mining industry. We are faced at the present moment in the mining industry with the fact that the cost of production has increased by something like 6d. per ton owing to the incidence of local rating, and that, with other factors, is making the situation as difficult as it is at the present moment.
There is another aspect of the question. We have now had five years of unemployment, and, if we take the figures given by the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health, we can see some part of the effect which unemployment has had in our large industrial areas. In 1923, he said, that among the insured population of this country not less than 20,500,000 weeks of work was lost, very largely through preventable illness, but, if we take his Report for 1924, we find that the number of weeks lost had increased to not less than 23,750,000. We say that a good deal of this is owing to the poverty of these people and the very poor conditions with which they are faced. When we talk of all these millions of weeks' work lost, or 477,000 years of work lost, as the Chief Medical Officer said, if unemployment is going to keep on as it is, it will mean that there will be not less than 1,300,000 years of work lost, or nearly 70,000,000 weeks of work lost amongst the working population of this country. Seeing that the Government have failed, up till now, to deal with unemployment effectively, the least we can ask them to do is to make the receiving of unemployment
benefit by a number of these men who cannot get work as easy as they can make it.
Who are the most pitiful objects with whom we have to deal? Come into the mining areas, with a colliery closed down, and men from 45 to 60 or 65 years of age unable to get work. In some of the mining valleys in Wales, in little townships, there is nothing else but mining for the men to do. About 99 per cent. of the male population are engaged in mining, and when you have, as you have in Blaina, in Blaenavon, or in Merthyr, a great number of the men who have been engaged in mining for something like 40 or 45 years, and who are now 50, 55 or 60 years of age, it is impossible for them to get work in other collieries around. Some of them have been unemployed for two, three, and four years, and yet, as a result of a Sub-section of this kind, you make it almost impossible for these decent men, some of the most respectable men I have known, to get unemployment benefit. There is the other aspect, such as the nystagmus men, who, as a result of this dread industrial disease that is so prevalent in our mining areas, are unable to get suitable work, owing to the fact that they cannot be employed underground. They cannot get work on the surface, their compensation is reduced to the bare making up amount, and the result is that, unless they get unemployment benefit, all that they have to do is to seek Poor Law relief. I ask the Minister to give serious attention to this Amendment. It will not affect him very greatly, and it will show to those men who are suffering—and no men have suffered more than they have—that there is a genuine desire on the part of the Government to make things as easy as possible for them.

Mr. SPEAKER: I must point out to the House that, having disposed of the first Amendment, after a prolonged Debate, we must not go back to the full width of that question on the whole Clause. We must keep ourselves to the particular proposals of this Amendment.

Mr. MONTAGUE: I beg to second the Amendment.
I do so on the ground that the retention of these statutory obligations imposed upon claimants to benefit will place them
in an inferior position to that in which they were in 1923. These particular paragraphs in. the Act of 1924 were inserted for the purpose of acting as safeguards to balance taking away the discretionary powers of the Minister. It is sought to renew these powers now, and yet, at the same time, the Act of 1924, so far as these paragraphs are concerned, is to remain unamended. Paragraph (d), which imposes the condition that the claimant shall make
every reasonable effort to obtain employment suited to his capacities and is willing to accept such employment
is the thing that, to my mind, has done more to injure the interests of the unemployed, perhaps, than any other provision of that character. I will give the House one indication of what I mean. Your committees have no industrial experience; they do not understand the conditions of seeking employment and the varying conditions in the different industries. I know a case where an unemployed man has only about 15 or 20 workshops in the whole of London to which he can go to ask for employment. That man, in the early period of his unemployment, went the round of those workshops over and over again, and obtained letters from the employers stating that they were unable to find employment for him. It is quite impossible for that person to continue to go round that limited number of shops, knowing full well that there is no possible chance of employment for him, annoying everybody concerned, from the manager of the shop up to the employer himself, and to be sent away time after time with more or less covert insults. He cannot be expected to be continually going round seeking employment in order to conform to a provision of this kind. That is just one instance where a man is injured and penalised because of a peculiar industrial condition which the rota committees themselves do not understand. For these, and many other reasons, I second the Amendment.

Mr. BETTERTON: As the hon. Member for Aberdare (Mr. G. Hall), who moved the Amendment, said, it is a very far-reaching one and one of very considerable importance, but I hesitate to think that either the Mover or the Seconder has really visualised what would be the effect of the Amendment, if passed. Neither hon. Member suggested any alternative words. What
they do by the Amendment is to ask that paragraphs (a), (b), (c), and (d) of Subsection (3), of Section I of the Act of 1924 shall be left out. The effect would be to give the Minister free and absolute discretion. I do not know whether they contemplated that they were putting this immense responsibility and power into the hands of the Minister, but that undoubtedly would be the effect of what they are asking us to do. If this Amendment were accepted, the Minister would be subject to no control at all; he would have absolute discretion with regard to all these cases. These four paragraphs do, through the rota committees, give guidance to the Minister, but the Amendment does something more, which I do not think the hon. Members have contemplated. At the end of Sub-section (3) there are certain benefits given to persons who have served in the forces. It says that for the purposes of paragraph (c), which is one of the paragraphs sought to be eliminated by this Amendment:
(i) in the case of a seaman, marine, soldier, or airman in respect of whom a payment is to be made or has been made under Section 41 of the principal Act, service as 6eaman, marine, soldier or airman; and
(ii) in the case of any person formerly engaged in war service, the undergoing of training for an insurable occupation, where the cost of the training is defrayed out of funds administered by the Minister or by the Minister of Pensions;
shall be treated as employment in insurable employment.
The benefits then are given to persons undergoing training and to persons who have served in the forces, and they are also to be taken away if this Amendment be accepted. A further result of accepting the Amendment is that you place persons who apply for extended benefit on exactly the same footing as those who have contributions to their credit, which I hesitate to think is what the hon. Members desire, because surely that would be contrary, whatever may be the rights and the wrongs of our respective views in the discussion on the previous Amendment, to every true insurance principle that you can name. If the contributions are available, that is to say, if they are standing to a man's credit, that is the test of his insurability. If there are no contributions, some conditions are necessary to test the genuineness of
the claim, and the effect of this Amendment, I repeat, is to remove all these tests. It does not suggest any other tests to put in their place, and I suggest to the hon. Member that, in the interests which they themselves have at heart, they would be well advised not to press this Amendment.

Sir HENRY SLESSER: I have listened with great attention to what the Parliamentary Secretary has said, and I really think that, so far from my hon. Friends suffering from any mistake in this matter, it is the hon. Member himself who is mistaken in his view of this Clause. What is the position as it exists to-day I Before the passing of the No. 2 Act of 1924, I think the hon. Member will agree with me that the conditions which are here laid down did not exist—not, that is, in the form in which they now are. In 1924 the applicant who comes under Subsection (3) was given a statutory right. It was declared that, if he had received benefit, he should nevertheless be entitled to receive benefit. That was safeguarded in this way, that he was to receive the benefit if, in addition to satisfying the requirements aforesaid, he also proved the conditions set down in paragraphs (a) to (d). The Government are seeking to take away that statutory right to benefit, and are substituting for it the words
the Minister may, if, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, he considers it expedient in the public interest so to do, authorise that person to receive benefit.
So that the individual claiming benefit under this Sub-section is back in the position in which he was before 1924, dependent upon the discretion of the Minister. He ceases to have any statutory right. What I do not understand is what the Minister means when he says that, if this Amendment were accepted, he would be able to do whatever he liked and would have a free hand. This condition operates, not against the Minister; it operates against the applicant. The position to-day is this: that the applicant has certain rights, if he can satisfy certain conditions. The Clause says that he has no lights unless the Minister chooses to give him those rights, and, therefore, the question of the conditions does not arise at all. The conditions which we are now seeking to eliminate only become impor-
tant if a man otherwise has a right to benefit, but, if this Clause is carried, then the Minister, "having regard to all the circumstances of the case," may, if he thinks fit, authorise the benefit. It leaves him a complete discretion as to whether or not he authorises the benefit.
What occurs to me, and what makes this Amendment so important and the refusal of the Minister to accept it so serious, is that if these conditions are still to obtain the Minister will only be able to exercise a discretion when those conditions are first satisfied. It means that the things he is going to consider, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, are only going to arise for consideration after the conditions are satisfied, which will whittle down the right to an extraordinary extent. The applicant has now to satisfy these four conditions. In the first place, he will have to get the discretion of the Minister exercised in his favour, and, if there is any meaning in giving a Minister discretion, that discretion must be something over and beyond the conditions which the applicant has to satisfy in any event.
Let us see what these conditions arc. He has got to satisfy that he is normally-employed in such an employment as would make him an employed person, that in normal times insurable employment suitable to his capacity would be available, and that he has during the two years immediately preceding the date of his application for benefit been employed in insurable employment. Lastly, he must show—and that is often hard—that he has made every reasonable effort to obtain employment suitable to his capacity. I say that is hard, because in practice it is interpreted in a very harsh way. I know there have been cases—and there have been cases in my own constituency—where in order to satisfy that condition the man was required to go round all the works in the district, although there were large placards displayed outside, "No men wanted," with the foreman standing there to swear at any man coming there for employment. Before the man can satisfy this condition, he has got to show he has been kicked out from, and insulted at every work in the district. When all that has been done and persecution and humiliation have been endured, then at last under the
existing law he has a right to benefit. As the law will now be, if the Bill goes through, having done all that, it is to be left in the discretion of the Minister.
Surely that is really being a little merciless. If you give a complete discretion to the Minister to deny unemployment benefit altogether under this Clause, surely the most academic and the most timid person influenced by actuarial considerations ought to be satisfied with entrusting the Minister with that discretion. I do not want to be misunderstood. I do not think the Minister ought to have discretion, but I am giving consideration to what Mr. Speaker said, that that arises on the more general question. But, seeing that the discretion is there, surely it is sufficient safeguard. The Minister can provide in his own discretion what the conditions should be. You do not want to fetter a man twice, first tie him to a stake, and then fetter the stake to the floor. Surely it is enough if the Minister has the discretion. I think it is a very important matter, because it shows clearly that the Government are not merely concerned with this discretion but want positively to worsen the position as compared with what it was before the year 1924 and before the Labour Government introduced this provision at all.
There is one other matter. The Minister has again said that we have overlooked the final paragraph that says persons who have been serving as seamen, soldiers and so on, are to be deemed to be in an insurable employment. But there is no danger to a man when once the conditions are eliminated. I do not understand the right hon. Member when he says we have overlooked the proviso. It says you have got to show that you are in insurable employment. If the Amendment be carried, the necessity to show insurable employment in paragraph (c) goes, and therefore the proviso is not needed. I do suggest that my hon. Friends around me were not so foolish or witless as is suggested, in moving the Amendment in this form. If you are going to have a discretion, it remains the discretion of the Minister. What we want to know and what the House is entitled to know is this. This is a proposal for taking away a statutory right to benefit. We ask, if it be decided that the Minister
should exercise a discretion, what need have you still to maintain the old statutory conditions which were inserted solely for the purpose of guaranteeing that the statutory right which now exist should not be abused? If Members will read the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mr. T. Shaw) which was made when the Bill was introduced, it will be seen that the two things are one and indivisible. The statutory right was given, and statutory protection against abuse was given too. But to insist upon statutory protection against abuse when there is no statutory right is overdoing it. I cannot help thinking, and I say it with all respect, that had this Amendment been moved from the other side it would have been accepted by the Government. There is no answer to this Amendment except that which is moved from the Labour Benches. That is the only answer. You are seeking to impose by Statute a limitation which often in practice amounts to persecution, in order that at the end of all the toil and trouble you are left with the mere charity right at the discretion of the Minister
I do not suppose anybody attaches importance to what I say, but I remember I said in the first speech I made in this House that sooner or later the party opposite would come to the parting of the ways—whether they were really going to be dominated by those members of the party who were really concerned with social reform or reconstruction, or whether they were going to fall under the domination of the more harsh members and plutocrats. It is quite obvious that the refusal to accept this Amendment is dominated by plutocracy and financial influences, and I regard it as a crushing defeat of the social reformers on the other side of the House, that having once given to these poor people a certain right which would help them and do so much social good, the Government should now come along and go back. It is a surrender to the Press, because the whole of this agitation was started in the newspapers. It is a surrender to financial interests and to the callous and more cruel influences which always work in a Conservative Government, and is a defeat of those on the other side of the House who stand for better influences. I hope that the Minister will see that this is a really needless hardship and callousness, and will, after considera-
tion, agree to this Amendment, although it has been moved from this side of the House.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted in the Bill."

The House divided: Ayes, 141; Noes, 216

Division No. 328.]
AYES.
7.55 p.m.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)
Harris, Percy A.
Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon
Salter, Dr. Alfred


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')
Hayday, Arthur
Scrymgeour, E.


Ammon, Charles George
Hayes, John Henry
Scurr, John


Attlee, Clement Richard
Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley)
Sexton, James


Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston)
Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)


Baker, Walter
Hirst, G. H.
Shiels, Dr. Drummond


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)
Sitch, Charles H.


Barnes, A.
Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)
Slesser, Sir Henry H.


Barr, J.
Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)
Smillie, Robert


Batey, Joseph
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)


Beckett, John (Gateshead)
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Smith, H. B. Lees- (Keighley)


Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)
Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)
Smith, Rennie (Penistone)


Bromley, J.
Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)
Snell, Harry


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip


Buchanan, G.
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Spencer, G. A. (Broxtowe)


Cape, Thomas
Kelly, W. T.
Stamford, T. W.


Charleton, H. C.
Kennedy, T.
Stephen, Campbell


Clowes, S.
Kenyon, Barnet
Sutton, J. E.


Cluse, W. S.
Kirkwood, D.
Taylor, R. A.


Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.
Lansbury, George
Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)


Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)
Lawson, John James
Thomson, Trevelyan (Middlesbro, W.)


Compton, Joseph
Lee, F.
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E)


Cove, W. G.
Livingstone, A. M.
Tinker, John Joseph


Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)
Lowth, T.
Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.


Crawfurd, H. E.
Lunn, William
Varley, Frank B.


Dalton, Hugh
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Aberavon)
Viant, S. P.


Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)
Mackinder, W.
Wallhead, Richard C.


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
MacLaren, Andrew
Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen


Day, Colonel Harry
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


Dennison, R.
March, S.
Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)


Duncan, C.
Maxton, James
Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah


Dunnico, H.
Montague, Frederick
Welsh, J. C.


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Westwood, J.


Edwards, John H. (Accrington)
Murnin, H.
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.


Forrest, W.
Naylor, T. E.
Whiteley, W.


Gibbins, Joseph
O'Connor, Thomas P.
Wilkinson, Ellen C.


Gillett, George M
Oliver, George Harold
Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)


Gosling, Harry
Paling, W.
Williams, David (Swansea, E.)


Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Greenall, T.
Ponsonby, Arthur
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)


Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)
Potts, John S.
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
Purcell, A. A.
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Windsor, Walter


Groves, T.
Ritson, J.
Wright, W.


Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)
Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Bromwich)



Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Robertson, J. (Lanark, Bothwell)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Hardie, George D.
Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W.R., Elland)
Mr. Allen Parkinson and Mr.




Warne.


NOES.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.
Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips


Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.
Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Conway, Sir W. Martin


Allen, J. Sandeman (L'pool, W. Derby)
Briscoe, Richard George
Cope, Major William


Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.
Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.
Courthope, Lieut.-Col. Sir George L.


Atholl, Duchess of
Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y)
Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry


Atkinson, C.
Buckingham, Sir H.
Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Bullock, Captain M.
Curzon, Captain Viscount


Banks, Reginald Mitchell
Burman, J. B.
Dalziel, Sir Davison


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Burney, Lieut.-Com. Charles D.
Davidson, J. (Hertf'd, Hemel Hempst'd)


Barnett, Major Sir Richard
Burton, Colonel H. W.
Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.


Barnston, Major Sir Harry
Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward
Davies, A. V. (Lancaster, Royton)


Beamish, Captain T. P. H.
Campbell, E. T.
Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)


Beckett, Sir Gervase (Leeds, N.)
Cassels, J. D.
Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Cazalet, Captain Victor A.
Dawson, Sir Philip


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
Dean, Arthur Wellesley


Bethell, A.
Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton
Doyle, Sir N. Grattan


Betterton, Henry B.
Chapman, Sir S.
Drewe, C.


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Charteris, Brigadier-General J.
Edmondson, Major A. J.


Blades, Sir George Rowland
Christie, J. A.
Elliot, Captain Walter E.


Blundell, F. N.
Clarry, Reginald George
Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.)


Boothby, R. J. G.
Clayton, G. C.
Falle, Sir Bertram G.


Bourne, Captain Robert Croft
Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Fanshawe, Commander G. D.


Finburgh, S.
Leigh, Sir John (Clapham)
Rhys, Hon. C. A. O.


Fleming, D. P.
Little, Dr. E. Graham
Rice, Sir Frederick


Ford, P. J.
Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)
Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)


Forestier-Walker, Sir L.
Loder, J. de V.
Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)


Foster, Sir Harry S.
Lord, Walter Greaves-
Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs., Stretford)


Foxcroft, Captain C. T
Lougher, L.
Ropner, Major L.


Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E
Luce, Major-Gen. Sir Richard Harman
Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.


Galbraith, J. F. W.
Lumley, L. R.
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Ganzoni, Sir John
MacAndrew, Charles Glen
Rye, F. G.


Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham
Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)


Glyn, Major R. G. C.
McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus
Sandeman, A. Stewart


Goff, Sir Park
McLean, Major A
Sanderson, Sir Frank


Greene, W. P. Crawford
Macmillan, Captain H.
Sandon, Lord


Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Sir H. (W'th's'w, E)
Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm
Sheffield, Sir Berkeley


Grotrian, H. Brent
McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John
Shepperson, E. W.


Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.
MacRobert, Alexander M.
Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)


Gunston, Captain D. W.
Malone, Major P. B.
Sinclair. Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfast)


Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn
Slaney, Major P. Kenyon


Hall, Vice-Admiral Sir R. (Eastbourne)
Margesson, Captain D.
Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)


Hanbury, C.
Marriott, Sir J. A. R.
Smithers, Waldron


Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Meller, R. J.
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)


Harland, A.
Merriman, F. B.
Spender Clay, Colonel H.


Harrison, G. J. C.
Meyer, Sir Frank
Sprot, Sir Alexander


Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)
Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)
Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Will'sden, E.)


Haslam, Henry C.
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)
Stanley, Lord (Fylde)


Hawke, John Anthony
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.
Stanley, Hon O. F. G. (Westm'eland)


Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.
Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)
Steel, Major Samuel Strang


Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd, Henley)
Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)
Storry Deans, R.


Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)
Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.
Nall, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Joseph
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid


Henn, sir Sydney H.
Nelson, Sir Frank
Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)


Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)
Neville, R. J.
Tinne, J A.


Herbert, S. (York, N. R., Scar. & Wh'by)
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Homan, C. W. J.
Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)
Wallace, Captain D. E.


Hopkins, J. W. W.
Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert
Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.


Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)
Nuttall, Ellis
Waterhouse, Captain Charles


Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N.
Oakley, T.
Watts, Dr. T.


Howard, Capt. Hon. D. (Cumb., N.)
Oman, Sir Charles William C.
Wells. S. R.


Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William
White, Lieut.-Colonel G. Dalrymple


Hudson, R. S. (Cumberl'nd, Whiteh'n)
Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)
Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)


Hume, Sir G. H.
Pilcher, G.
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis
Pilditch, Sir Philip
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Hurst, Gerald B.
Power, Sir John Cecil
Wise, Sir Fredric


Hutchison, G. A. Clark (Midl'n & P'bl's)
Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton
Womersley, W. J.


Jacob, A. E.
Price, Major C. W. M.
Wood, E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'dge & Hyde)


James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert
Raine, W.
Woodcock, Colonel H. C.


Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)
Ramsden, E.
Wragg, Herbert


Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)
Rawlinson, Rt. Hon. John Fredk. Peel
Young, E. Hilton (Norwich)


Kidd, J. (Linlithgow)
Rawson, Alfred Cooper



King, Captain Henry Douglas
Reid, D. D. (County Down)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Knox, Sir Alfred
Remer, J. R.
Major Hennessy and Mr. F. C.




Thomson.

Miss WILKINSON: I thought we were to move the omission of (b) and (c).

Mr. STEPHEN: On a point of Order. When I raised this point earlier in the day with regard to these four paragraphs (a), (b), (c) and (d), there were various names to those Amendments. None of those Members has been asked to move.

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member was not in the House at the time.

Mr. STEPHEN: The two paragraphs I wanted to omit were (c) and (d)—not (b) and (c).

Mr. SPEAKER: I have no doubt the hon. Lady will give way.

Miss WILKINSON: I am perfectly willing to give way, but can I ask your ruling on this matter? There seems to have been a misunderstanding on the
previous Motion. Would it not be well, seeing that we are not allowed speeches on the Motion, to move to delete paragraphs (b) and (c) and (c) and (d)?

Mr. SPEAKER: I am afraid I cannot do that, as there are other Amendments coming on, and if I allow a Division on paragraphs (c) and (d) or (b) and (c), we could pass to the further points of the Bill. Perhaps the hon. Lady will allow the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) to move the Amendment.

Mr. STEPHEN: I beg to move, in page 1, line 14, at the end, to add the words, "and as if paragraphs (c) and (d) were omitted."

Question put, "That those words be there inserted in the Bill."

The House divided: Ayes, 138; Noes, 211.

Division No. 329].
AYES.
[8.7 p.m.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)
Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon
Saklatvala, Shapurji


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Hayday, Arthur
Salter, Dr. Alfred


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')
Hayes, John Henry
Scrymgeour, E.


Ammon, Charles George
Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley)
Scurr, John


Attlee, Clement Richard
Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Sexton, James


Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston)
Hirst, G. H.
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)


Baker, Walter
Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)
Shiels, Dr. Drummond


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)
Sitch, Charles H.


Barnes, A.
Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)
Slesser, Sir Henry H.


Barr, J.
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Smillie, Robert


Batey, Joseph
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)


Beckett, John (Gateshead)
Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)
Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley)


Bromley, J.
Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)
Smith, Rennie (Penistone)


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Snell, Harry


Buchanan, G.
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip


Cape, Thomas
Kelly, W. T.
Spencer, G. A. (Broxtowe)


Charleton, H. C.
Kennedy, T.
Stamford, T. W.


Clowes, S.
Kenyon, Barnet
Stephen, Campbell


Cluse, W. S.
Kirkwood, D.
Sutton, J. E.


Clynes, Right Hon. John R.
Lansbury, George
Taylor, R. A.


Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)
Lawson, John James
Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)


Compton, Joseph
Lee, F.
Thomson, Trevelyan (Middlesbro. W.)


Cove, W. G.
Livingstone, A. M.
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)


Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)
Lowth, T.
Tinker, John Joseph


Crawfurd, H. E.
Lunn, William
Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.


Dalton, Hugh
MacDonald. Rt. Hon. J. R. (Aberavon)
Varley, Frank B.


Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)
Mackinder, W.
Viant, S. P.


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
MacLaren, Andrew
Wallhead, Richard C.


Day, Colonel Harry
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)
Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen


Dennison, R.
March, S.
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


Duncan, C.
Maxton, James
Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)


Dunnico, H.
Montague, Frederick
Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Westwood, J.


Edwards, John H. (Accrington)
Murnin, H.
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.


Forrest, W.
Naylor, T. E.
Whiteley, W.


Gibbins, Joseph
O'Connor, Thomas P.
Wilkinson, Ellen C.


Gillett, George M.
Oliver, George Harold
Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)


Gosling, Harry
Paling, W.
Williams, David (Swansea, E.)


Greenall, T.
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)
Ponsonby, Arthur
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)


Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
Potts, John S.
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Purcell, A. A.
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Groves, T.
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Windsor, Walter


Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)
Ritson, J.
Wright, W.


Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Bromwich)



Hardie, George D.
Robertson, J. (Lanark, Bothwell)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Harris, Percy A.
Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W.R., Elland)
Mr. Allen Parkinson and Mr.




Warne.




NOES.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward
Falle, Sir Bertram G.


Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.
Campbell, E. T.
Fanshawe, Commander G. D.


Allen, J. Sandeman (L'pool, W. Derby)
Cassels, J. D.
Finburgh, S.


Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.
Cazalet, Captain Victor A.
Fleming, D. P.


Atholl, Duchess of
Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
Ford, P. J.


Atkinson, C.
Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton
Forestier-Walker, Sir L.


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Chapman, Sir S
Foster, Sir Harry S.


Banks, Reginald Mitchell
Charteris, Brigadier-General J.
Foxcroft, Captain C. T.


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Christie, J. A.
Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E


Barnett, Major Sir Richard
Clarry, Reginald George
Galbraith, J. F. W.


Barnston, Major Sir Harry
Clayton, G. C.
Ganzoni, Sir John


Beamish, Captain T. P. H.
Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham


Beckett, Sir Gervase (Leeds, N.)
Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Glyn, Major R. G. C.


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Conway, Sir W. Martin
Goff, Sir Park


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Cope, Major William
Greene, W. P. Crawford


Bethell, A.
Courthope, Lieut.-Col. Sir George L.
Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Sir H. (W'th's'w, E)


Betterton, Henry B.
Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.
Grotrian, H. Brent


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Curzon, Captain Viscount
Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.


Blades, Sir George Rowland
Daiziel, Sir Davison
Gunston, Captain D. W.


Blundell, F. N.
Davidson, J. (Hertf'd, Hemel Hempst'd)
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.


Boothby, R. J. G.
Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.
Hall, Vice-Admiral Sir R. (Eastbourne)


Bourne, Captain Robert Croft
Davies, David (Montgomery)
Hanbury, C.


Bowyer, Capt G. E. W.
Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Harland, A.


Briscoe, Richard George
Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)
Harrison, G. J. C.


Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.
Dawson, Sir Philip
Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y)
Dean, Arthur Wellesley
Haslam, Henry C.


Buckingham, Sir H.
Drewe, C.
Hawke, John Anthony


Bullock, Captain M.
Edmondson, Major A. J.
Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.


Burman, J. B.
Elliot, Captain Walter E.
Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxford, Henley)


Burney, Lieut.-Com. Charles D.
Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.)
Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)


Burton, Colonel H. W.
Everard, W. Lindsay
Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.




Henn, Sir Sydney H.
Merriman, F. B.
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)


Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)
Meyer, Sir Frank.
Sandeman, A. Stewart


Homan, C. W. J.
Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)
Sanderson, Sir Frank


Hopkins, J. W. W.
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)
Sandon, Lord


Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.
Shepperson, E. W.


Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N.
Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)
Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)


Howard, Capt. Hon. D. (Cumb., N.)
Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)
Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfst.)


Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive
Slaney, Major P. Kenyon


Hudson, R. S. (Cumberl'nd, Whiteh'n)
Nall, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Joseph
Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)


Hume, Sir G. H.
Nelson, Sir Frank
Smithers, Waldron


Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis
Neville, R. J.
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)


Hurst, Gerald B.
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Spender Clay, Colonel H.


Hutchison, G. A. Clark (Midl'n & P'bl's)
Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)
Sprot, Sir Alexander


Jacob, A. E.
Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert
Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Will'sden, E.)


James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert
Nuttall, Ellis
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland)


Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)
Oakley, T.
Steel, Major Samuel Strang


Kennedy, A. R. (Preston).
O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh
Storry Deans, R.


Kidd, J. (Linlithgow)
Oman, Sir Charles William C.
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


King, Captain Henry Douglas
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid


Knox, Sir Alfred
Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)
Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)


Leigh, Sir John (Clapham)
Pilcher, G.
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)


Little, Dr. E. Graham
Pilditch, Sir Philip
Tinne, J. A.


Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)
Power, Sir John Cecil
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Loder, J. de V.
Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton.
Wallace, Captain D. E.


Lord, Walter Greaves-
Price, Major C. W. M.
Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.


Lougher, L.
Raine, W.
Waterhouse, Captain Charles


Luce, Major-Gen. Sir Richard Harman
Ramsden, E.
Watts, Dr. T.


Lumley, L. R.
Rawlinson, Rt. Hon. John Fredk. Peel
Wells, S. R.


MacAndrew, Charles Glen
Rawson, Alfred Cooper
Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)


Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)
Reid, D. D. (County Down)
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus
Remer, J. R.
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


McLean, Major A.
Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.
Wise, Sir Fredric


Macmillan, Captain H.
Rice, Sir Frederick
Womersley, W. J.


Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm
Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)
Wood, E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'ge & Hyde)


McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John
Roberts. Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)
Woodcock, Colonel H. C.


MacRobert, Alexander M.
Robinson, Sir T. (Lanes., Stretford)
Wragg, Herbert


Malone, Major P. B.
Ropner, Major L.
Young, E. Hilton (Norwich)


Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn
Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Margesson, Captain D.
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)
Major Hennessy and Lord Stanley.


Meller, R. J.
Rye, F. G.

Mr. T. THOMSON: I beg to move, in page 1, line 14, at the end, to insert the words
Provided that any Regulations made by the Minister with respect to the conditions under which a person is to be authorised to receive benefit shall be laid before each House of Parliament as soon as may be after they are made, and if an Address is presented to His Majesty by either House of Parliament within the next subsequent twenty days on which that House has sat next after any such Regulation is laid before it praying that the Regulation may be annulled, it shall thenceforth be void, but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done thereunder or to the making of any new Regulation.
In this Clause, the Minister is taking the most democratic powers to deal with the administration of benefits. There is nothing in the Bill which indicates on what lines or under what conditions benefit will be given or refused in the future, and this Amendment retains the Parliamentary power of controlling and regulating the conditions under which benefit shall be given. It is, of course, a constitutional point of some considerable importance. Having by this Bill repealed, in effect, the 1924 Act, which laid down a statutory right, and now giving the Minister these large democratic
powers, we are entitled as a House to know under what conditions and under what terms he will administer them. I cannot see how the Minister can refuse the request that these Regulations that are being made should be laid upon the Table of the House, in order that the House may agree or approve of them, as we may desire.
This procedure happens in regard to many other matters in the Ministries. When the Pensions Bill was passed last week, or the week before, similar Regulations or conditions were laid down. Therefore, we are only following constitutional precedent in asking that the Regulations should be submitted to the House. In resisting this Amendment in Committee, the Minister suggested that it was impossible to standardise the conditions, and that by requiring that these Regulations should be laid before the House we were acting against the interests of the insured people, because, if there were qualifications to be made, it was much more difficult to make them under Regulations than by the act of the Minister. But I submit that we ought to know what are the conditions. We want to standardise the terms. We say that
the insured person has a right to know, and that Parliament has a right to know, the terms and conditions under which benefit shall be paid. Therefore, I submit this Amendment to the House.

Mr. HARRIS: I beg to second the Amendment.
I hope it will be accepted by the Minister. There is a very important point of constitutional liberty here, for the House of Commons has always been jealous of parting with any of its powers of legislation to a Minister. To give a Minister such important powers as these of making and drafting Regulations is very nearly parting with legislative powers to a Government Department. This Amendment is drafted in such terms that there will be no delay entailed in the matter, for, as provided by the Amendment, the Regulations may be either accepted or cancelled by the vote of the House. Hon. Members are naturally suspicious as to the powers to be placed in the hands of a Minister, for hon. Members feel, as do some of the people outside who are concerned, that these Regulations may be so drafted as to go very much further than has been suggested by the Minister in his various speeches. We ought, I submit, 1o have the opportunity to criticise, to scrutinise, to see what form they are going to take, and then much of the opposition to this Bill would be removed.
There is something even more than that. We are getting into the habit of giving autocratic powers to Ministers which affect the lives and well-being of our citizens. The House of Commons is very careful to keep control over Government Departments. Bureaucracy may be full of good intentions. It does not always exercise good understanding in the powers entrusted to it. The world is paved with good intentions. But Members of Parliament, who are in touch with their constituents, know very much better what are the needs and realities of the situation than does any Government Department in Whitehall. It is just as well that the House of Commons should have some say in Regulations such as these, affecting so many thousands of people. From my own experience, I know that some of these Regulations in the past have fallen very severely on certain people. The Minister
may not intend it, but what we want to secure before these Regulations become permanent is that they should be thoroughly criticised by the House of Commons, and that the House should have the right, if hon. Members so desire, to amend, alter, or annul them.

Mr. BETTERTON: I gather that the object of the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment is to secure that the action of the Minister in regard to the matters referred to in the Amendment shall obtain he fullest publicity. If that be so, I can satisfy hon. Members at once.

Mr. THOMSON: It was not publicity we wanted, but sufficient control by the House of Commons.

Mr. BETTERTON: If that be so, I must point out, first of all, that the hon. Gentleman opposite has somewhat misconceived the matter. The Amendment says:
Provided that any Regulations made by the Minister with respect to the conditions under which a person is to be authorised to receive benefit shall be laid before each House of Parliament…
But the present Bill and the Act of 1924 does not make that necessary, nor, indeed, do they prescribe that the Minister, when giving these directions, shall make Regulations at all. The Act allows him to do this by directions. A direction is a very different thing from a Regulation, because a Regulation has always the rigidity of the Act itself. In many of these cases it is necessary, or it may be necessary, for the Minister to act quickly; it may be necessary or desirable that his decision from time to time should be modified at rather short notice. My right hon. Friend has always desired that there shall be the fullest publicity of what he is doing in this matter, and he has agreed to place in the Library the directions which he issues from time to time. He has said, and I have said here, too, that we are perfectly willing, and indeed wishful, to send these copies to any Member of the House who cares to see them at any time. The Minister is anxious that the House should know exactly what he is doing in this matter, and for that purpose we are quite willing to take the steps that I have suggested. That would appear to be the object the hon. Members have in view in the Amendment. In these circumstances,
I hope the Amendment will not be pressed.

Mr. ALEXANDER: It is quite true, as the Parliamentary Secretary says, that it is intended, apparently, that a lot of the administration under this Act shall be by instructions or directions of the Minister, and not be Regulations. We have had some experience of that already since the present Government came into office. It is the very thing which has been done by the Minister under the Circular which has now come to be known as the famous circular of 19th February. Although the Minister does not talk about such an arrangement as being a regulation, yet, in fact, when he comes to communicate with local people, an instruction to the various branches of his Ministry is regarded as a rule. I have before me a letter from the Minister, dated 11th June, to the Sheffield Board of Guardians, in which he is replying to a resolution of the guardians concerning the very severe effect upon local conditions of the instruction of the Minister of 19th February. He says:
It seems to the Minister to be the clear intention of the Act in allowing an interval before the new condition comes fully into force that during that interval steps should be taken to apply the condition gradually in the interval, and it was in pursuance of this intention that the Minister decided to put into force the 'rule' now in question.
So the whole of the directions which have been so adversely affecting the unemployed and local authorities during the last five or six months have been regarded by the Minister as rules. If that be so, I think the hon. Member who moved the Amendment, and those on the Labour Benches who have a further Amendment on the paper, are entitled to ask that this House should have the final control of instructions of that very far-reaching nature.
I do not think it is realised in the country how serious are the effects of the instructions of the Minister. I have been going into some local figures on this very point. As a result of the rule laid down by the Minister on 19th February, over which this House has no control, we get such effects as this. In the week ended 21st February, that is, two days after the issue of the circular, I find that in the area of the Sheffield Board of Guardians the total weekly increase in relief, owing to lack of unemployment
benefit, was £888. On the 29th June this year, after his instruction had been in operation for four months, the extra charge in out-relief was £1,495, an increase of £610 per week, or nearly 80 per cent. At an earlier stage of the Bill I said it would cost Sheffield something like £30,000 a year—in regard to what the Minister did under the Circular of 19th February. The figures we have now got out demonstrate that absolutely, yet when we come here with a reasonable request that the regulations, rules, instructions, whatever you like to call them, which have such a very disastrous effect upon local finance should come within the purview and the control of the representatives of the people, we are quietly told by the Minister that it cannot be done. I realise from the drafting of the Bill in its present form, and from the original Act of 1920, that it may be difficult for the Minister to accept the Amendment unless he be prepared to accept another Amendment as well which would make it incumbent upon him to do these things by regulation instead of by instruction; and in spite of the adamant attitude he has shown during the discussion of the Bill. I hope that, having regard to the strong opposition to the Government's policy not merely of Members on these benches, but of representatives of all parties who sit on local authorities, and the desire to have some control in this matter, that the Minister will yet see his way to amend the Bill so as to provide for control by this House of matters of such far-reaching effect as those we have been talking about.

Mr. BECKETT: I cannot let this Clause go through without saying on behalf of the constituency I represent how very necessary it is that some check should be placed upon the actions of the Minister and of his Parliamentary Secretary under this Clause. Tyneside has for some years been one of the six worst places in the country for unemployment, and since the advent of the hon. Gentleman opposite to power the unemployment figures have very largely increased, and when the whole of our industry is being ground even lower than it was before by the action of the present Government in callously throwing their responsibility on to the ratepayers, and thus handicapping our export industries in such a way that it is impossible for them to make any
kind of recovery, it seems very necessary to have a check upon the activities of the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary. The hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. T. Thomson) spoke of the deputation, which I had the honour of accompanying, which waited on the Prime Minister last Friday on behalf of necessitous areas. In those areas we are faced with what amounts practically to a breakdown in the system of local government. If the right hon. Gentlemen and their unemployed friends, who will presently come in to vote us down without having heard the discussion, are allowed to continue their thoroughly mischievous activities with regard to the bottom dog, it is going to be quite impossible to carry cm the system of local government which has been carefully and gradually evolved by the wisdom of many generations of Englishmen. "When we saw the Prime Minister, the Minister of Labour and the Chancellor of the Exchequer we wore met with very great sympathy and very great kindness. If the Prime Minister were not even more helpless than he is sympathetic, we should have had something to help us on the very hard journey we are engaged on, but we have to face the fact that in 1923, under the right hon. Gentleman's predecessors, we had 6,000 unemployed on the live register—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. James Hope): I do not see how the hon. Member is connecting his argument with the question in this Amendment as to whether these regulations should be presented to Parliament.

Mr. BECKETT: I am trying to show that the effect of what the Minister is doing is to throw upon our shoulders the burden of maintaining these unemployed, and that the Government are now refusing an Amendment which will make the Minister responsible to this House for his actions in that respect. If there were no unemployed in my constituency I should have no reason for speaking on this Clause. With your permission I should like to give to the House some particulars of the tremendous problem with which we are faced.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Gentleman may argue that the laying of these regulations before Parliament
would affect his constituency. He is really not in order in bringing in the circumstances of his own constituency without reference to the effect that will be produced by the acceptance or non-acceptance of this particular Amendment.

Mr. BECKETT: We have at the present moment a tremendous unemployed problem which, unless we are very careful, will entirely break down our local financial system through the rates, and there I am very anxious that the Minister should not have power to impose any Regulations or directions which might have the effect of increasing our local burdens without this House having an opportunity to approve them which the Amendments of the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. T. Thomson) would give us. I hope the House will consider this Amendment very carefully. It is not as if we had gentlemen in office whom we felt had any kind of real sympathy or feelings in issuing these Regulations. We have learned very bitterly during the past six months that although we may get more courtesy from the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister of Labour than from other hon. Members, we also get more callous treatment, Because there is no tyranny like a weak tyranny, and there are no people so hard as those who know what they are doing is wrong and yet for other reasons deliberately pursue that wrong and callous policy.
It is on that account that I appeal to those hon. Members who are interested in this question to see whether they cannot give us some kind of check on these mischievous activities. If no Regulations or directions are going to be imposed which the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary feel are unfair, mean, callous, treacherous or despicable, then why should they mind the House of Commons having the ultimate voice and authority in this matter? It seems to me that when we have all this fear about the House of Commons with a large Conservative majority governing issues of this kind there must be something even meaner contemplated in the future than what the right hon. Gentleman has done since he has been in office. I do not understand why these Regulations should not be brought forward for the House to consider. I regret that the House presents
such a contrast to that which was presented last evening, and reluctantly I have come to the conclusion that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite have two broad prejudices and dislikes, they dislike people who live outside this country and workers who live inside it.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Questions about foreigners cannot possibly have anything to do with this Amendment, and I must ask the hon. Member to keep to the question before the Chair.

Mr. BECKETT: I think the Regulations ought to be considered by this House before they are allowed to be put into effect. If we have to bring Regulations or directions in front of the House, and if we have to spend a certain amount of time discussing them, then urgent economies might not be effected in time. That would have been a very effective argument the day before yesterday, but it is not effective to-day. A Government that can spend £56,000,000 upon protecting us from some enemy that their distorted and fevered imaginations have conjured up cannot spend £400,000—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member must know that all this has absolutely no relevance to the Amendment.

Mr. BECKETT: It is very obvious that the feelings of the mass of the people are inspired by a deep distrust of the motives of the Minister of Labour, which T would ask you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, to allow me to express as briefly as I can. If there was no feeling except that of a kind heart at the Ministry of Labour there would be no need for us to have to press for such an Amendment as this. If there was not even some more callous actions than the right hon. Gentleman has performed in the past contemplated he would not oppose such an eminently reasonable Amendment, which is not intended, and could not have the effect of luring him into any kind of rash financial commitment. It cannot cost him a penny. The only thing it can do is to say that in the future any particular cheeseparing which the thoroughly comfortable intend to do at the expense of the thoroughly uncomfortable will have to be submitted to this House before it is done. For
these reasons I would like the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider this matter. I have only been in this House a short time, and it has always been a marvel to me to notice how many hon. Members in their individual capacity are charitable, and yet when they come here in their corporate capacity they drive up to this House comfortably, eat an expensive meal, and buy themselves expensive wine—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I cannot conclude that the hon. Member errs through obtuseness, and, therefore, I must conclude that he errs through intention.

Mr. BECKETT: I am trying to put the case as I see it on behalf of the people who are being robbed and callously exploited by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and when I ask that these people may have the protection of this House, in my concluding sentence, I think I have a right to put their case forward. I cannot understand why the right hon. Gentleman and hon. Members opposite will do such things when they come here in comfortable expensive clothes, live on good food and good wine, and smoke expensive cigars, and then make a proposal like this to exploit and callously rob poor women and children.

Mr. SPENCER: I have not been much impressed by the explanation which has been given about the operation of the Act of 1924. The reply which we have had with regard to the laying of these Regulations on the Table of the House was that in the 1924 Act Regulations to be made by the Minister there was no provision whatever that these Regulations should be laid upon the Table. That is perfectly correct, but, with all deference to the hon. Gentleman, may I draw his attention to the Regulations under the Act of 1924, as against these Regulations which govern the payment of those who are insured and have to have extended benefit. In the Act of 1924, three distinct provisions were made with regard to Regulations. One was in regard to the power to make Regulations with respect to the appointment of a personal representative of a deceased or insane person. That has practically nothing to do with Regulations regarding the payment of benefit. The second
provision was with regard to persons working partly by day and partly at night, and the third had reference to a change in the insurance year. All of these were Regulations dealing with questions of a minor character, upon which there could be nothing but unanimity, or almost unanimity, of opinion.
With regard to the Regulations with which we are dealing at the present time, I say again that there is all the difference in the world, because the Regulations which we are asking should be laid on the Table for 20 days have to deal, and will deal, with the instructions of the Minister in regard to payments of varying character. It is quite easy to conceive, and I believe it will be the case, from what has been said by the Minister him self, that there will be discrimination between insured persons. For instance in the case of, say, a young man of 22. who has parents with whom he lives, it is conceivable that a Regulation may be made that he will be entitled to extended benefit, because he is no longer a minor, but an adult, and his parents have no legal claim upon him, nor has he any legal claim upon his parents, but that a young man aged 20 years and 11 months may find a Regulation made against him stating that ho will not be entitled to extended benefit, because it will be assumed that his parents will be able to keep him. That is a conceivable, logical case. I do not know whether Regulations of that character will be made, but I think I might say to the Minister that we have a perfect right to know what these Regulations are. It has been stated that they will be placed in the Library, but that, obviously, is not quite sufficient, and I am quite certain that, if the right hon. Gentleman were dealing with a question of this character from an individual business point of view, he would never agree to a provision like this, but would demand to see exactly what the provisions were that were going to govern his business.
I venture to say that we have a perfect right to know in this House what those Regulations are before they begin to apply, or, if they begin to apply while the House is not in Session, as soon as ever the House returns it ought to have an opportunity of examining, and, if it likes, pronouncing upon, these Regulations,
whatever they may be. I submit that both parties on this side of the House have made out a reasonable case on be-half of these whom we seek to represent. I am quite convinced that, if hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side were sitting here, they would not be prepared to sit still while Regulations were going to be passed and were going to come into force of which they could have no knowledge whatever. Therefore. I submit that we have a perfect right to see what these Regulations are before they come into force, or, if they come into force during the Recess, we ought on our return to have an opportunity of examining them and seeking by prayer to get His Majesty to remove them if we think they are not right.

Sir H. SLESSER: As I read this provision, it gives authority to the Minister to decide whether or not a particular person shall receive benefit and that authority may conceivably be in the form of a Regulation. There is power under the principal Act to make Regulations generally for the purpose of carrying the Act into effect, and the principal Act and this Measure are to be read as one Act, so I take it there will be nothing to prevent the Minister, if he wishes, from giving his general authority by Regulations. The Parliamentary Secretary, who has now left the House, said a few minutes ago that he objected to the procedure of Regulations, because, he said, a Regulation was so rigid, and was part of the Act of Parliament. I should have thought that in a matter of this kind, when we have taken away the existing statutory right to benefit from these classes of cases, something more or less rigid was needed when you are cutting off whole classes of persons from benefit. It seems to me that the fact that the authority would be of a rigid nature, which could be critically examined and really made part of the Act, would be just what we ought to demand, and what the House ought to desire. After all, the effect of this authorisation is going to be quite as decisive as to whether a particular class of person is or is not going to receive benefit as any statutory limitation which exists in any of the Acts to-day. One might as well say, as it seems to me, that all the qualifications for unemployment benefit in all the Unemployment Insurance Acts should be
decided by the Minister by directions, which, I understand, are to be exposed in the Smoking Room or the Tea Room or some other place of refreshment—I refer to something that was said by the Parliamentary Secretary a few minutes ago.
That is not quite enough. What we are asking is that the demarcation, which is made between persons who may or may not receive benefit, should be definitely made rigid and decisive, and that the House should have control over it. It was said that the circumstances might frequently vary, that you wanted to be elastic, but I cannot understand how that can be the case. The provision runs:
The Minister may, if, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, he considers it expedient in the public interest so to do, authorise"—
that a certain class of persons shall have benefit. That, surely, is not a matter which can vary from week to week or from day to day. Surely, the decision which the Minister would give as to whether a particular class, say the class of young persons referred to earlier in the Debate to-day, are or are not to receive benefit, is a decision which he will make, at any rate, for a period of several months, if not for a year. It is not a thing, surely, on which he is going to change his mind from day to day. I assume, rightly I think, that the right hon. Gentleman is a gentleman of discretion and judgment, and that his successors will be also, and that they are not going to change their minds from hour to hour or from day to day as to what constitutes a proper right to receive benefit. If a Regulation can be made, the Minister would scarcely argue that it should not be laid on the Table of the House. The Regulations which are made under the principal Act, and the Regulations which are made under Section 35 of the Act of 1920, had all to be laid on the Table of this House, and the provisions are precisely the same as those in this Amendment.
Therefore, the whole question really boils itself down to whether you think it is necessary to have Regulations, or whether in this matter it is safe to give the Minister unfettered power to give directions from day to day. As the Clause is actually worded, it would appear that he might even direct that one individual
shall have benefit. It does not even refer to classes. It says:
The Minister may, if, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, he considers it expedient in the public interest so to do, authorise that person to receive benefit.
So that, of two persons of the same class, one might get benefit and the other might not, at the arbitrary dictation of the Minister. Surely, the saner, fairer and more democratic way of dealing with the situation would be to make general Regulations stating the ground on which in the public interest a class of persons should or should not receive benefit, and use that authority in a general way, making it part of the Act by Regulation, and changing it, if you will, without coming back to Parliament—which there is power to do if it be a Regulation—but abstaining from any suggestion of being autocratic and issuing directions for classes or individuals from day to day. I should have thought the Minister would welcome an Amendment to that effect. I quite agree the Minister may say,'' As the Bill is drafted, I do not agree with you that this authority really contemplates a Regulation." I can appreciate that argument being made in a Court of law, but here, with every respect to Courts of law, we are dealing with realities. If the Minister thinks the proposal of the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, is a sound one, that the Regulations should be laid on the Table of the House, he will not hesitate to put in, even at this late hour, a consequential Amendment saying this authorisation shall be by Regulation.
I do not know if we are to have a reply or not. Perhaps the Minister does not think what I am saying is worthy of it. But if he is moved to reply to what I am saying, I am sure he will not make this point against me or the hon. Member, that this authority is not by Regulation. The two things are really one. The Amendment asks for the Regulation to be laid on the Table. That assumes that the authority is to be made by Regulation. The general principle is that the House shall continue to have control. You are really here not dealing with a minor point of directing a particular executive or administrative act. You are deciding whether a whole class of persons shall or shall not receive unemployment benefit. As that is done by Regulation under the principal Act, so we
ask that it should be done here. The Under-Secretary said something about the Act of 1924. The Act of 1924 cave a statutory unqualified right to benefit in every case, and the question of Regulations or authority or direction defining who is to have benefit and who is not cannot arise when the whole thing is statutory. The Act of 1924 has nothing whatever to do with the case. The whole question is, Are people to be cut off from benefit in classes by a mere ipse dixit or an arbitrary decision of the Minister, or are we to have a proper Regulation which may be criticised and treated as of statutory sanction?

9.0 P.M.

Major CRAWFURD: I wish to urge the Amendment on the right hon. Gentleman simply from the point of view of House of Commons' control over questions of public policy. I do not want to refer to any particular Regulations which might be made under this Clause. I should like to draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the powers with which he is going to be endowed under this Clause, and to the position to which that reduces the House of Commons, which, after all, is supposed to be the sovereign authority in matters of legislation. I should also like to draw attention to the fact, as I believe it to be, that neither in Committee nor, so far, on the Floor of the House, has the Government made the slightest concession on this Rill to Amendments which have been put forward, both by hon. Members above the Gangway and, more particularly, by my hon. Friend the Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. T. Thomson). [Interruption.] I say "more particularly," not in any offensive sense but because he happens to have taken part, both upstairs and downstairs. If there is anything offensive in the word, I will alter it and use the word "generally." This adamant attitude of the Government is taken up with regard to a Measure which has received fierce opposition from Members on this side of the House. I should like to make the Amendment a test case of the Government's readiness to meet a genuine grievance under the terms of the Bill they have drawn. My hon. Friend behind me and the right hon. Gentleman, who has just sat down, have both drawn attention to the very wide powers conferred on the
Minister under the terms of Clause 1 The words, "the Minister may, if, having regard to all the circumstances of the case," are the only qualifying words put into the Bill which bind the discretion of the Minister in granting or withholding the benefit. I cannot conceive language vesting a more arbitrary power in any Minister of the Crown on a subject which unquestionably arouses very deep feelings and affects a large number of the population. I understand the defence offered by the Under-Secretary for the refusal to accept the Amendment was that if it were embodied in the Bill it would be more difficult for the Minister who has these powers to adapt the Regulations from day to day. In moving the Amendment we are not considering that contingency at all. What we are considering is that the Bill provides very considerable alterations in the method of dealing with the whole of the vast question of unemployed benefit, and changes just as great as these may be carried out under the provisions of the Bill without any effective opportunity arising in the House of debating them or putting the other side of the case. You could not have a wider and more arbitrary power than is given under the language of this Bill. By giving that arbitrary power you enable the right hon. Gentleman, or any of his successors, to make what amounts to a vast change in public, policy without any control whatever by the House of Commons, and it is on that constitutional point that I would ask the right hon. Gentleman, even at this stage, to reconsider his decision and to give us the Amendment.

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland): I wish I could accept the Amendment with fairness to the administration and, as I think, to the claimant, but I fear really I cannot. If it were possible I should have been glad to do it, exactly in the same spirit that I am putting down an Amendment myself, when it comes to a place where it can properly be done on Clause 4, page 4. May I refer to the points at issue? I am anxious to do anything in my power to secure that there should be publicity. I am not wishing to hide anything from any Member of the House. I am not certain whether the Parliamentary Secretary dealt with this in my absence. On a previous occasion the right hon.
Gentleman the Member for Seaham (Mr. Webb) dealt with a point exactly parallel with this, and he said the great thing required was publicity, and he was satisfied on that occasion with any Regulations of this kind being placed in the Library. I believe the Parliamentary Secretary has already stated that we are ready and anxious, when anybody expresses a wish, to send him any Directions of this kind that may be made, so that, at least, nothing shall be hidden.
As regards what has been called the autocratic or arbitrary use of this power, it is very easy to make a charge of that kind, but there has never been any complaint when the same power of discretion has been in existence that there has been autocratic or arbitrary use of it. Upstairs in Committee, we had strange and contradictory arguments used by different members of the Committee. One objected because he said he would not mind what the Minister did, but he was afraid of the arbitrary action of the public officials. Another said that if he knew that he would be in the hands of the officials of the Department he would not mind, but it was the Minister that he really objected to. Those types of objection about arbitrariness destroy one another. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Because one hon. Member said that he was perfectly prepared to leave it in the hands of the Minister, while the other said that if the power was in the hands of the Minister he would not be satisfied.
The proof of the pudding has really been in the eating. This power has been in operation for a long time, and there has been no question about arbitrariness in its use. The real safeguard against that, is the publicity which we are perfectly willing to afford. The real objection that I understand has been made against it was made by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, who said that it ought to be a Regulation like other Regulations. If he will refer to the original Act, and to the kind of Regulation contemplated in that Act—I think it is in Section 35—he will find that those Regulations are Regulations which are admittedly rigid, and which could be laid down, as a rule, like a Statute. The case with regard to these Regulations is that if they are laid down with reference to certain classes of people—it may well be that hon. Members opposite do not agree
to them being laid down in regard to certain classes of people; but we are dealing with the question of Regulations—an individual case may come up which under any Regulation might be a case of hardship. It is with that point precisely that I want to be able to deal without too great rigidity. I am thinking of the case quite apart from whether hon. Members opposite and I agree as regards the class of case.
Suppose it does apply to a class; with regard to young men living with their parents. There may be exceptional cases which are out of the general category. There may be a case of sickness or the case of a cripple. That is the reason why we want to have power to administer the rule with as much flexibility as possible. It is on behalf of the claimant, and to see that there should not be over-rigidity in dealing with cases which ought to be excepted from the general class, because of some such qualification or condition, that I ask for this power. It is for that reason that I ask hon. Members opposite in the interests of the claimants themselves to allow the flexibility for which I ask, and not to press this Amendment.

Mr. SHAW: If my hon. Friends press this Amendment to a Division, I shall support it.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I must ask my right hon. Friend to excuse me. I must leave the. House, but it is not out of discourtesy. He will realise the reason.

Mr. SHAW: I realise that the right hon. Gentleman must go. This Amendment is essential in the interests of the insured people. We have heard a great deal of the Minister's intentions, but we cannot take the Minister's intentions. What we have to take is the Bill that gives the Minister power to deal with a quarter of a million of people, and to refuse our grant benefits at his discretion. It is no use the right hon. Gentleman saying that he wants power so that he can have elasticity to provide for the claimants in a beneficent way. The Clause deals with the claimants in an anti-beneficent way, and we cannot accept his statement that his intentions towards the insured persons are good, when the Bill says that the Government's intentions towards the insured persons are bad. Because we
cannot accept the statement that the right hon. Gentleman's intentions are good, when the Bill's intentions are bad, I shall certainly support the Amendment if my hon. Friends press it to a Division.

Captain BENN: A reason why this Amendment should be pressed to a Division was given in the attempt of the Minister to defend the Clause. I do not think any thinner argument has ever been put forward. We are asking for a very simple thing. The Minister will still have power to make these' Regulations, and when he has made them and they are presented to this House, all we ask is that we should not be required simply to endorse them, but that we should have the power to pass an Address regarding them if we have a majority. That would not cost much money, and it is not a demand inconsistent with the self-respect of the House of Commons. His defence is, "I want this power in order to be kind. I am anxious to consider hard cases, and if you ask me to lay Regulations, I shall not be able to give free play to my kindly instincts." Did anyone ever hear such nonsense? If he wants latitude for special cases, that could be met by inserting in the Regulations such words as "Except where the Minister otherwise decides."
The plain fact is that with things as they are to-day, we are afraid that he will use the discretion much too harshly. We desire that these Regulations should be laid, and that we should have the power to move an Address in regard to them in the middle of the night. That is what it will amount to. Why should the Attorney-General be afraid of a minority, a small minority, moving an Address against the Regulations. It gives a little ventilation of grievances. Then he can bring in his hundreds of silent and absent voters to vote us down. Whereas the Government can plead legitimately against Amendments which involve large financial issues, they cannot plead against this Amendment, because it is nothing but the self-respect and control of the House of Commons that is involved in it. The Government will be well advised to allow it to be added to the Bill.

Mr. VIANT: I desire to express my opposition to this Clause, and my
intentions to support the Amendment. In order that one may appreciate the spirit behind this Amendment, one has to take into consideration the purpose of the Bill as a whole. The Bill is brought forward with a desire to effect economy.

Mr. SPEAKER: We have had a long discussion on the Clause as a whole, and must not go back on that. We are now dealing with the detailed point.

Mr. VIANT: I have no desire to go back on the Clause, but this Amendment is moved wholly with the view of endeavouring to be sure that the kindness which the Minister of Labour has said he desires to exercise being embodied in the Regulations. We also desire that those who are affected by unemployment shall have the assurance at least that the Regulations which are issued to the rota committees are of such a kind that every kindness that can be expressed shall be expressed by those committees, and furthermore that due consideration shall be given to the cause of the individual being unemployed. It is within the recollection of the House that in the early part of this Session Regulations were issued, and on previous occasions in Debates in this House many hon. Members have had occasion to draw attention to the spirit which permeated the Regulations issued to the various Labour Exchanges and rota committees, and if this Amendment were carried it would at least avoid anything of that kind taking place, or if it did take place, prevent it from operating for any great length of time.
It would give the House the opportunity of assuring those who are likely to be affected by the Act that due attention is being given to their interests. The statutory right has already been taken away. The discretion of the Minister is to be exercised, and, even if we are prepared to accept the statement of the present Minister, it is not certain that he is going to remain in office for any undue length of time, and, having conferred these powers on the Minister, this House ought to insist upon retaining the right of reviewing the Regulations, and having a power to amend them. In order that that shall be done I desire to support the Amendment.

Mr. WALLHEAD: I view with considerable alarm the determined fight
which the Minister is making to preserve the rights which he claims under this Bill. It is interesting to notice the very wide discrepancy of authorities on this matter as to the number of persons who will be affected by the Regulations and by the Orders which the Minister will bring into operation. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour stated this afternoon that this Clause will affect about 70,000 persons, but my right hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mr. T. Shaw) has declared more than once, and his statement has in no sense been challenged, that the number of persons to be affected will be 250,000. If these Regulations are to affect the welfare of 250,000 persons then they become a matter of some moment. Again and again we have been assured of the good intentions of the Minister. It has been said that the pathway to Gehenna is paved with good intentions, but I have never yet heard it said that the quality of the material used for pavement made any difference in the destination, and in this case I am afraid that we cannot accept the good intentions as being at all commensurate with the value to be placed upon the fact that the Regulations must be laid on the Table of this House so that they may be challenged by Members.

I am saying what I am saying, frankly, because I do not trust the Minister. It is my firm conviction that this Bill has been introduced to achieve some form of economy which, to my mind, is entirely false, and the strenuous attempt which the Government are making to achieve economy in this particular field makes me suspicious of the Regulations which they will adopt. I am here to do what I can to protect the interests of the public authorities in my constituency who are going to be affected very sadly indeed by the passing of this Bill. I am quite convinced that any saving which the Government may make by the harsh operation of this Clause will react very badly on the very much harassed local authorities which I have the honour to represent. There is no economy which can be effected except so far as the Government are concerned. Other people will have to pay the bill. We want to have the right to say in this House that in our opinion the Regulations are ill-framed and badly advised. Therefore, I hope that this Amendment will be carried.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted in the Bill."

The House divided: Ayes, 144; Noes, 244.

Orders of the Day — UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE BILL.

CLAUSE 2.—(Amendment as to statutory conditions.)

Mr. STEPHEN: I beg to move to leave out the Clause.
I do so in order to put a question to the Minister. Some time after the present administration came into office I think the Minister of Labour was responsible for altering the conditions under which extended benefit was given. There was the. Regulation made with regard to the eight stamps, or the 30 stamps in all, as a condition of the recipient receiving benefit. I want to know, now that the Minister is seeking to get from this House an extended period in which he is able to exercise this waiver in connection with the first statutory condition, whether he can give us an assurance that there will not be a tightening up of those conditions; that all the alterations contemplated are those already stated by the Minister, and put into the Bill. Frankly,
I myself have been very suspicious with regard to this Measure because of the difficulty that we find in getting any exact statement from the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary, and I would like to know if the Parliamentary Secretary could give us the assurance that all that the unemployed have got to fear in connection with the Regulations are the statutory condition and these statements that the Minister has made in connection with this Measure. I would like the assurance that there will be no more onerous conditions imposed upon these people during this extended period when the Minister is being allowed to waive the first statutory condition. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary, on behalf of the Minister, will be able to give this House that assurance.

Mr. WALLHEAD: I beg to second the Amendment.

Mr. BETTERTON: I think the House will realise, that the request which the hon. Member has made is one to which I should not be justified in acceding. It is perfectly obvious that in the exercise of a discretion of this kind the Minister must be moved and rightly moved by the circumstances prevailing at the time. He cannot tell in the near future, or indeed in the more distant future, what the circumstances with regard to trade or employment or industry may be. The Minister is not present, but I think I can say for him that he will exercise this discretion in a manner which will be fair to all concerned and it would not be right to fetter or bind his discretion in this matter in the way in which the hon. Member asks me to do. The manner in which he exercises it must depend on the circumstances of the time.

Mr. BUCHANAN: If the Parliamentary Secretary cannot give us the assurance
for which the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) has asked, can he at least give us this assurance—that no alteration will be made in the immediate future. Some of us are gravely disturbed at the condition of affairs in the country and at the possibilities of the next week or two. Surely we might have an assurance that the Ministry or the Government do not contemplate making any change in the Regulations within the next few weeks. If such an assurance cannot be given to cover a very long period, I suggest it might be given to cover a reasonable period.

Mr. DUNCAN GRAHAM: I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to inform the House whether it is the Minister of Labour who is to interpret these Regulations or whether they are to be interpreted by the managers of Employment Exchanges, rota committees or some of the other numerous individuals who come between the Minister and the person claiming benefit. Personally, I am anxious to know with whom we shall have to deal in the event of these Regulations being passed as contemplated. It is only reasonable and fair that the Parliamentary Secretary should give us some information on that point. We have found in the past when raising particular questions, that it was not the Minister himself who was responsible but some member of the Department, and the unemployed person is entitled in this case to know who is directly responsible for the interpretation of the Regulations.

Mr. MAXTON: May I urge upon the Parliamentary Secretary to accede to the request of the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) and give us some indication of what is in the mind of the Ministry on this matter. This is a tremendous power which the House is giving to one Minister. We are leaving in his hands a discretion as to whether or not a very large number of the unemployed in this country are to receive extended benefit. I hope that in the many estimates made and the many actuarial calculations that have been carried out by the officials of the Ministry they have roughly drawn out a plan as to the period during which the Minister is to exercise his discretion. Without attempting to interfere with that discretion, it is reasonable to ask the Par-
liamentary Secretary how long they contemplate carrying on the present rights.

Mr. SPEAKER: I am afraid this discussion is going beyond what was originally intended. That matter does not really arise on the Clause.

Mr. BETTERTON: With the leave of the House, may I say that I think the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Duncan Graham) and the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) have misconceived the purport of Clause 2 and the object of the question which was put by the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen). With regard to the question put by the hon. Member for Camlachie, I certainly will say that no change in the immediate future is in contemplation, and when, therefore, he asks me whether, in view of the rather perplexing and discouraging immediate outlook, it is proposed to take any action during that period, I say, certainly not.

CLAUSE 3.—(Amendment as to waiting period.)

Mr. PALING: I beg to move to leave out the Clause.
During the Second Reading Debate, when the Minister was making his apology for bringing in a Bill of such a wretched character, he twitted the Labour Minister of the last Government with the fact that this particular Clause was not included in the original draft of the Labour Government's own Bill last year, and I think he sought to find in that some reason for going back to the provision which existed prior to the Labour party's Measure. I do not think it was a very good reason, and it appeared to me that if the right hon. Gentleman was at a disadvantage to find any reason for this proposal he failed to find one in that direction. In any event there was a great difference in character between the two Measures. The Bill of last year sought to make better the lot of the unemployed and sought to give legislative effect to some of the promises we have made. Hon. Members opposite have made as many promises as most people, but they seek to carry out their promises by
making the position of the unemployed infinitely worse. This Clause proposes to undo what the Labour party did last year in regard to the waiting period.
It will be remembered that in connection with the provisions of the Budget there was the suggestion of providing pensions for widows and orphans and extending old age pensions. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that provision and the general provisions of the Budget were to be related one with another, and he suggested also that the whole thing would be related with the Unemployment Insurance Bill. With remarkable ingenuity he has managed to knit these things together. He has said, among other things, that as a result of the Pensions Bill a certain contribution per week will be put upon the employers, but he has indicated that some alteration will be made in the contributions to unemployment insurance. Time after time we have attempted to get some indication from the Chancellor, the Ministry of Health or the Ministry of Labour of what the alterations are going to be, but we could get nothing. Apparently they were waiting to see what effect the contributions that were to be imposed in the Old Age Pensions Bill were going to have on industry, and immediately they were made known, big business in this country shrieked, and the Government had to find some way of placating big business. They proposed to put so much per week on to the contributions for old age pensions; there was a row about it, and they found they must placate them. They took so much a week off the contributions now being made for unemployment insurance, and, as a result of that reduction, it meant that there would be a reduction in the funds, and some equivalent had to be found.
It is to be found out of the pockets of the unemployed. Some £5,000,000, I think, has to be found by increasing the waiting period from three days to six, which means that £5,000,000 less is going to be paid out to these unfortunate people than has been the case hitherto. It is one of the meanest ways of balancing, to use the Chancellor of the Exchequer's term, that I have ever known introduced into this House. The only reason that I can find that the
Minister of Labour has given for the introduction of this Clause is that the limitation of benefit by the extension of the waiting period is the least burdensome form of limitation. I think it is quite clear that when a person has been ex hypothesi in employment for a good period, a limitation of this kind is less burdensome at the end of that period than would be such a limitation at a later period. The only argument put is that it is more possible for a man, when he has been in employment and is then unemployed, to go for six days on starvation benefit than it is for a man who has been unemployed for a considerable time.
It is a poor argument, in my opinion, and I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary if he thinks the wages that are paid to the working men and women of this country are such that they have any chance of saving a sufficient sum to enable them to be six days unemployed without receiving any income of any description. Campbell-Bannerman, just before his death, gave expression to the opinion that there were 13,000,000 people in this country always on the verge of starvation. I believe that number could be increased to-day, and for the Minister of Labour to suggest that the wages that are being paid to-day are sufficient to cover this waiting period is absurd. The wages average, round about three guineas a week, calculated on a basis of six days a week, but millions of our people are not making six days per week, but two, three, four, and five days a week with the cost of living 80 per cent. above pre-War, equivalent to a pre-War wage of 37s. a week. In answer to the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. Thomson), when he pointed out that this extension to six days would mean that more men would be put upon the rates in the necessitous areas, the Minister dissented, and said he thought he could bring figures to prove that that was not so. He has been asked on various occasions to submit such figures, but we have never seen them yet.
As a matter of fact, the evidence of last year's Labour Government proves this, that the benefits that were given under the Unemployment Act actually succeeded in reducing the number of recipients of Poor Law relief throughout the length and breadth of this country. At the end of the Labour Government's term
there were less people receiving Poor Law relief than at any other time since the slump in industry came, proving that there is a direct connection between benefits given under the Unemployment Insurance Act and the relief that has to be dished out by Poor Law authorities. In these circumstances, I think that even now the Minister would be wise to withdraw this Bill. This Clause has not a single virtue to recommend it. It takes £5,000,000 off the people who can least afford to have anything taken from them. Talk about balancing a Budget—£5,000,000 from those who are already starving, and £40,000,000 to those who have already more than enough, and yesterday £58,000,000 for a naval force, after a war to end war. The only contribution to the financial solution of all these problems is the suggestion in this miserable Bill, and in this even more miserable Clause, that £5,000,000 should be taken off the unemployed to compensate for some of the things the Government have given to their friends.

Mr. SEXTON: I beg to second the Amendment.
My reason for doing so is not exactly the same as that which actuated the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Paling) in moving it. I am dealing with a particular class of men, and I hope I shall be excused for alluding to them, because I think it is due to the Parliamentary Secretary to explain the reason why I was not present upstairs in Committee to move the rejection of this Clause. I happened to be otherwise engaged, on matters connected with the shadow that is hanging over the country to-day, but I have the opportunity now, and I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to ask the Minister of Labour, even at the eleventh hour, to reconsider his decision with respect to the casually employed men, of whom there are no fewer than 200,000 at the docks of this country, who are roped into this legislation, which was never intended to cover them.
This legislation was originally based on the principle of constant employment. It was never anticipated that men who were employed for half a day, and whose contract then ended, should have imposed upon them legislation of this character, which does not fit them even now. I
recognise, and I am somewhat grateful for, the fact that the spirit of the continuity rule with respect to the casual labourer still continues in the Bill, but that is very much discounted, if not entirely wiped out, by the fact that 15 per cent. at least of the casual labourers of this country will be permanently disqualified, as they were before, by the extension of the three days to six. I know I may be confronted with the fact that, so far as the casual labourer is concerned, he has received considerably more benefit than he has paid in. That may be, but the hon. Gentleman opposite is never tired of telling us that this is an insurance, and that is one of the risks of insurance. Let me put as a typical case that of the casual labourer who works a five and a-half days' week. We have no six days' weeks, and 11 half-days make up our week. I am not quite sure even now as to whether, when this Bill goes through, the half-day on Saturdays will be allowed to count as a day. The man may be idle several half-days in the week, and if the half-day on Saturday is counted as a full day, why is not that continued on the ordinary half-days of the week? I quote that as a concrete case which applies generally. A man's contract ends on a half-day. He may have a full day and four half-days during the week, and yet none of these four half-days counts in order to qualify him for the benefit. A man may only get half-days all the week, or might only get three half-days, and yet although he is only earning on three or four half-days per week, he has to pay every penny and an additional fourpence on account of the Widows' and Orphans' Bill, for which he never qualifies at all.
Then there is the case of the man who may work a full day on one day, but that does not count unless another day follows. The rest of the week may be half-days, and every one of those half-days is absolutely wiped out for this man in respect of qualification. I have had considerable negotiations with the Minister's Department years and years ago, and I do not complain that they have not met me as fairly as the Regulations permitted, but I put it that this goes entirely beyond what was originally decided, and I toll the right hon. Gentleman that it is not fair. This legislation
does not affect the casual labourer at all and never will. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will give us some hope that a Regulation will be framed to meet the case I have quoted.

Mr. THOMSON: I do hope the Minister, whom we are glad to see back again from his duties upstairs, will be able to make some concession on this most important Clause. When we were discussing this matter upstairs, it was suggested by many of us that the alteration in the waiting period from three days to six days would not only do an injury to the individual insured person but also inflict a considerable hardship on the local authorities where these people live, because whatever may be the feeling of the Minister, the feelings of the local authorities will not permit these people to starve. If the Minister is going to save some £5,000,000 owing to the operation of this Clause, that £5,000,000 has got to come out of somebody's pocket. If it is taken out of the pocket of the insured workers, then they are bound to turn for assistance to the local rates and the boards of guardians. Therefore, the direct effect of this particular Clause will be to throw on to the local ratepayer those burdens and responsibilities which hitherto had been borne by the national Exchequer.
10.0 P.M.
It does seem a somewhat extraordinary proceeding that, at the very time the Prime Minister himself is considering ways and means of attempting to relieve the overburdened ratepayers and industries which are hardly pressed, and at the very time he is setting up a Departmental Committee to consider how they can give assistance to distressed areas, at the same time by this particular Clause the Government should be making an alteration in the law which is bound to impose on those very authorities an additional burden. The Minister suggested that our fears, are exaggerated, but the boards of guardians and local authorities who have to deal with this matter are probably better acquainted with what the effect will be than even the Minister himself. Most of us have had representations from our local authorities that, if this Bill goes through in its present form, it will mean a considerable extra burden on to the rates, because although it may seem a
small matter to increase the waiting period by three days, in effect it means a fortnight at least during which a man is out of work before he gets any benefit at all.
I submit that at a time like the present, when unemployment has been so excessive in all districts, the resources of the individuals are exhausted, and any savings they may have had have long since disappeared. Owing to the fact that wages are so small, it has been impossible for them to save. It has been said by an hon. Member that wages upon an average were more than £3 per week. He is fortunate in his district if they average that. I know that in the district I have the honour to represent wages of skilled labourers, shipyard workers and iron and steel workers are more like £2, and out of that 40s. it is impossible for them to save anything in case they are thrown out of work. It means that immediately they are out of work they have to wait for this additional period. They will be compelled to go to the boards of guardians and get assistance from them, and that will make a very considerable addition to the burden of the local rates if this Clause passes in this particular form.
I appeal to Members opposite who represent these distressed industrial areas to raise their voices, if not to exercise their votes, in impressing upon the Government the seriousness of this position in these particular areas, because it is impossible for industry to revive if the rates are being piled up in the way they are. In may cases now they are nearly 20s. in the pound, and from the accounts one receives from these distressed areas, when this Bill goes through the chances are that they will be raised by five or six shillings in the pound. Therefore I do appeal to the Minister that in the interests of these depressed areas, and of industry itself, which cannot recover so long as the rates are so heavy, he should accept the Amendment and allow the waiting period to remain at three days instead of increasing it to six days. Is it really worth while inflicting this injury on the individual and on industry for the short period that this Bill has to run? The present Insurance Acts practically come to an end in June of next year. Is it worth while, when we are facing a winter of unemployment and everything looks so
black as it does at the present time, that this extra burden should be put on to the individual and on to the local authorities? I appeal to the Minister to leave things as they are, so that at any rate during the currency of the present Act the individual shall have the advantage of the short period.

Mr. ALEXANDER: The first day that the imprint of this Bill was available in the Vote Office of the House, I said that the Bill, and particularly the Clause we are discussing, was the meanest Bill this Government had yet produced, and that was saying a great deal. The effects of this Clause, in its hardships upon the individual insured worker, have been so graphically described by my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster (Mr. Paling), that I need not labour that point. That does not mean I do not agree with every word he uttered on the point, but I desire to emphasise the case that has been put by the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. T. Thomson) again and again in this House with regard to the effect of the policy of this Government upon the local authorities responsible for administering our Poor Law. We have heard all kinds of criticisms of the Bill, which became the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1924, which was sponsored by my right hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mr. T. Shaw). One thing that Act did was to bring immediate and very effective relief to the local authorities with regard to their administration of the Poor Law. I can best illustrate that from our experience in Sheffield. The immediate effect of the Unemployment Insurance Act of last year was to relieve the rates in Sheffield, one of the most heavily-burdened unemployed areas, by no less than £68,000 for the year. That had an enormous effect on the rates, and was a real relief not only to the ratepayers, but to those specially burdened industries in Sheffield faced with an overhead charge for rates which bears upon them, not like the Income Tax, which is levied on profits, but an overhead charge which has to be met by industries, whether they make a profit or not, and, therefore, continually operates against the recovery of that industry.
What is the effect of the policy of the present Government? I would be out of
order in pursuing very far the argument I used on a previous Clause, but I might say the effect of the operation of this Clause upon local authorities has been very well foreshadowed by the fact that the Minister's instructions have meant an increased charge up to the moment in Sheffield of £610 per week extra for relief. This has to be met out of the local rates, and is an increased charge on the local ratepayers in general, and upon our overburdened industries in particular. We are told that this Clause is going to save to the Fund something like £5,000,000 a year. It means, in the long run, that that money has to be found by the Poor Law authorities, and it has to be found by the very authorities who are least able to bear the burden. We, on these benches make no apology for saying that we often in our speeches say of a lot of our workers that they are poor because they are robbed, and robbed because they are poor. That is just the kind of effect the policy of this Government is having on the local authorities in the areas most heavily burdened with unemployment. They are poor because they have been robbed of any real assistance from Governments which they ought to have had in the last four years, and now, apparently, because they remain poor, they are to be robbed for the benefit of the Fund under this Bill.
Take the rates of my own city, in which my constituency is situated. On the 31st March of this year, because of the situation there, we had outstanding rate arrears amounting to £536,000. We have had to issue for the year ending 31st March, 1925, summonses for uncollected rates against 47,180 individuals or firms. The guardians already have incurred up to the 29th June, 1925, for relief of unemployment, loans amounting to £698,000, and, in addition to that, the ordinary debt is another £92,965, and, as the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough has pointed out, this additional burden is now to be placed upon authorities with those fearful commitments. With no possible hope of escaping from the situation in which they find themselves, they are to be met with a policy, as outlined in this Clause, of an additional charge for the unemployed, which we had been meeting in our Act of last year, and to be faced with another danger of an increased local charge, because of the Government Bill upon rating and valuation. It seems to those
who are concerned with these authorities that this Government is going out of its way on every occasion to place more burdens upon those areas which have had to bear the biggest burden with regard to unemployment, and we begin to wonder what is going to be the end of it. I think that while the Debate is proceeding on this Clause, we ought to get from the Minister of Labour some answer on two points. First of all, locally, in regard to Sheffield, what hope is he going to offer, in regard to this policy in this Bill, of redress to the Sheffield Board of Guardians on the case they put in their interview the other day with the Parliamentary Secretary?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member is now going somewhat beyond this Clause.

Mr. ALEXANDER: I am the last to want to transgress, but, if I may put it, you will pull me up if I transgress too far. We are raising the effect of this Clause in its incidence upon local authorities which are overburdened. The two cases I wanted to put were, first, the Sheffield case, and, secondly, the deputation from Members of Parliament representing—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I think that is a matter rather with regard to administrative acts. The hon. Member is perfectly in order in saying that the rates in any particular place are very much overburdened, and that this would throw an extra burden on them, but he is not entitled on this occasion to deal with administrative action.

Mr. ALEXANDER: I accept your ruling, and will content myself with expressing the hope that the case we have been putting up on this Clause may have some influence, in regard to the other representations we have made as to administration. But I want to put it to the representatives of the Government here to-night, that in regard to places like Sheffield and similar areas, if the Government persist in this kind of policy, I am certain we shall come to a serious impasse in regard to the administration of local Poor Law. You have had already considerable difficulty in the case of West Ham, and you will get, I am afraid, just as serious an impasse in other localities. What will be the result? If you persist in this policy, you are going, finally,
I believe, to have to administer the Poor Law yourself by commission from the Government, because you will find that the locally elected representatives on these authorities are not prepared to go on week after week, month after month, and now year after year administering what seems to be almost a hopeless task.
So far as we are concerned in Sheffield, we can say that the reconstituted board of guardians, and, indeed, the two boards that preceded that board, have given their time, energy, and their undivided labour to economising in every possible way to try and relieve the burden without coming to the State for more assistance than was necessary. Yet every month seems to make the position worse because of the attitude of the Government. Unless the Government can see their way to withdraw Clauses of this kind, I am afraid the position is going to be made still more acute. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary not to discount this Amendment. At any rate—the hon. Gentleman has been courteous—I would ask him not to treat it in that hard-hearted manner that the other Amendments have been treated by the Government, and to remember that it is not a question of party on this particular Amendment. All parties who are represented on the local authorities in these areas, knowing the difficulties that they have, are waiting for some measure of hope and encouragement from the Government.

Mr. SPENCER: The points that I really wanted to emphasise have been taken up by the hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Sexton). Indeed, he and I for many years in this House have been on a mission of failure with regard to the particular industries which we represent. We have a case which appears to have some point of resemblance though it is not exactly on "all-fours," for both among the dockers and in the mining we have workmen who are continually working, some four and some five half-days per week, and it is impossible for them on these occasions to qualify for benefit. I know cases in which men have been working at the pit for four weeks and off for four weeks, and then they have made eight days. I know other cases in which, say, an engineer has worked for a couple of weeks and then had holiday for two. He has worked for another three weeks,
and then had holiday for another week, and has got unemployment benefit for the week in which he was having holiday; while the miner, who has been working just two days per week, could not get a single benefit because ho had made four half-days only. That is so under the present Act. That position is going to be made infinitely worse by the present Bill.
I should like to ask the Minister of Labour one or two questions. The right hon. Gentleman knows what I am talking about. He is cognisant of these facts, for he and I have talked the matter over many times. Our constituencies are contiguous. I remember discussing some of these questions in 1924. Some hon. Member on the opposite side suggested that the men should not go to work unless a day's work could be found. I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman or the Parliamentary Secretary, if he is going to reply, would we be justified in saying to an employer: "If you cannot find us a full day we are not coming to work until you can"? Would we be justified in doing that? Would we get unemployment pay if we could put that down? Because if we could we would be quite prepared to say to any employer who could not find us a full day's work: "We will wait until you can." We have the utmost difficulty in some instances in going to the employers and asking them to work their pits when they can give us a full day. On the other hand—I say it frankly and honestly—we have other employers who are sympathetic towards us, and do their very utmost to work only when they can give a full day. In these cases we have very little difficulty. We have cases where we have done three days' work, then been out of work a day, and then had two full days afterwards. On the other hand, we have collieries now where the men have been working, through this bit of a fillip owing to the threatened stoppage, two days and two and a half days a week, and that has not qualified them at all simply because the men made half-days. As the Bill stands at present it is going to be difficult in this matter of qualification. I do not know whether any special provision can be made to meet the cases such as the Member for St. Helens and myself have put up?
An insurance scheme ought to give some reasonable prospects of benefits to the whole of the men who contribute to it, and if in certain industries conditions are imposed upon the men which they cannot avoid and which militate against them in the way I have been speaking of, special consideration ought to be given to those industries. We have been told more than once that the Minister is sympathetic, but that it is an administrative difficulty. I admit that so far as the dockers are concerned the Department might not know who had been working and who had not been working; but I do not want to plead my case as against the case of the hon. Member for St. Helens. There may be a measure of truth in that as regards the dockers, but certainly one cannot bring that argument against the miners, because when a pit stops it stops, and anybody who has any knowledge of the working conditions knows that when a pit stops the whole of the men, very largely, have to go home—the exceptions being a few special hands, like winders and others, who are necessary even when the pit is actually at a standstill. If we are to have the six days' waiting period, the Minister ought to devise special Regulations to cover cases of this kind, because he knows as well as I do that in the industry with which I am associated it is almost impossible for men to bear the six days.
I cannot conceive why the Government should have changed the three days to six days. In the Workmen's Compensation Act the period is three days, and it was the present Government that passed that Act. If three days is a fair waiting period in a workmen's compensation scheme, it is certainly a fair period in an unemployment insurance scheme. If a man is away from work owing to an injury for a month he gets paid for the three days, whereas in this case the men get benefit for neither the three days nor the six days, and I submit that the case presented by the hon. Member for St. Helens as regards the dockers, and the case I have presented, call for special consideration and special treatment.

Mr. LANSBURY: I am sorry I have not been able to take part earlier in these discussions, owing to circumstances over which I have had no control. I consider this Bill one of the worst, one of the most
callous, and characterised by the most calculated meanness, that has ever been brought before this House. It robs and plunders the very poorest in the land. The alteration of the law which is proposed by this Bill is definitely robbing the very poorest of the unskilled labourers. It is all very well for the Minister and others to talk about the principles of insurance, but nobody on that side of the House or on this side talked about the principles of insurance in 1919 and 1920, and I want to call the attention of the House to the fact that Lord Derby has put it on record that in other days we were obliged to deal with the unemployed differently from how we are dealing with them to-day because of the fear of revolution. I think there is nothing more mean and contemptible on the part of any government or any party than to differentiate their treatment of human beings because on one occasion you think they are strong enough to fight you, and on another you think you have got them down and you can keep them down and rub their noses in the mud a little deeper. I am not so much concerned about the rate of any borough or district where they find the burden very heavy indeed, but the burden of starving is a very much harder thing to bear than even getting rid of a little mud.
In my district, which is one of the poorest in London—I am sorry the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Remer) is not here—I have to remind the House again that there are between 25 and 30 per cent. of the wage-earners who are always casual workers, and nobody knows it better than the present Minister of Labour, and nobody knows better than he does that this has been their normal condition for the last 25 or 30 years, and the present position of affairs has accentuated that state of things. Only two days ago I bought out of a group in a pawnshop these three stars. Although I am what you consider a person who holds queer views about war, I should think myself the most contemptible person under the sun if I inveigled men to go to war and gave them medals such as these. Here is the Mons Star—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I cannot see how the hon. Member is connecting his argument with the Amendment.

Mr. LANSBURY: I am speaking, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, of men whom the callous meanness of the Government Bench is going to rob of three days' unemployment pay and thus drive them deeper into the mire. [An HON. MEMBER: "Put them away!"] I will not put them away. In fact I should like to take them to Buckingham Palace. [An HON. MEMBER: "You are disgracing them!"] The disgrace is on you who allow men to be driven into starvation like this. These are the men whom you said stood between you and destruction in France, and all you can do for them now is to drive them to destitution. These are the men upon whose breasts these medals were pinned by the King. [An HON. MEMBER: "What have you done?"] I defy any of you to convince these men that you are treating them properly now when the pawnshops are full of these medals. [An HON. MEMBER: "What did you do?"] I did nothing in the War, in fact I tried to keep men out of the. War.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I think the hon. Member has now got away from Clause 3.

Mr. LANSBURY: This is a matter of vital importance to the men and women that I represent in this place. It is economising out of the lives and the well-being of the poor men and women of waterside districts, up and down the country. This Bill is a murder Bill. Every man who votes for it will be guilty of sheer murder, because under this Bill children will be starved, women will be. starved, and men will be starved. I understand it has been said that these men can save enough money to tide them over the six days. Those who say that are people who have never bad to live on any such money as any of these men earn. For people, whose incomes run into thousands, to tell poor men, who earn a few shillings a day, that they ought to be able to economise and save so that they can pay for the six days, and not need money from the fund, is, I consider, adding insult to injury; but you do not get away from the fact that, even with the three days' waiting period, men are obliged to do this kind of thing, and you cannot get away from the fact that when it is six days, more of them will have to do it.
When you argue that they may spread the period over so many weeks, how are you going to save the millions you are going to save from this if it is not by taking them off these men in one form or another? You cannot save it unless you get it from someone or other, and you are going to get it out of these unskilled workers who rallied to defend this country—which never belonged to them, but which belongs to you—and who formed what is called the living wall. I am going again to repeat, in spite of the sneers and jeers of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, that to pin these medals on the breasts of unskilled labourers, pat them on the back, and tell them what great, fine fellows they were, and then to starve them so that they have to pawn your wretched medals, is, I think, the most mean and despicable conduct that ever the Parliament of any country was ever guilty of. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman might come down to Poplar and to Bow and Bromley and talk to the ex-service men down there, and tell them what his opinion is as to this sort of thing. You dare not do it, and you dare not do it in your own constituencies either, in defence of this most mean proposal to plunder these men in this way. I think that any party or any Government that is so guilty proves to the workmen quite conclusively that you only pat them on the back, you only think them fine fellows, when you want them to fight for you or to die for you. It is not as if there were only these three medals. I invite you to go round the pawnshops of the West End and look in the windows. You will see them there, exhibited for sale, and not merely in my district. I bought three the other day up here in Westminster, pawned by the same kind of people that the right hon. Gentleman is going to rob through this—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member is again getting away considerably from the Clause.

Mr. LANSBURY: I am trying to point out the effect even at the present time, when the waiting period is three days, and what will be the effect when it is six days. Then I want to call attention to the fact that this physical and mental demoralisation not only affects the men,
but the children and women also. The right hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that the death-rate amongst babies under one year old before the War was infinitely higher than it is to-day, and one reason why it has been kept down has been that there has been more generous administration of the Poor Law, and also more generous administration of the Unemployment Insurance Act. But this is all part of a deliberate policy to drive the workman into the position he was in after Waterloo. [Interruption.] If you do not know your history go and read it. Everyone knows that the British worker went through hell after Waterloo.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I must ask the hon. Member to confine himself to the Amendment.

Mr. LANSBURY: This is part of a policy which was deliberately started by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carmarthen (Sir A. Mond) when he was at the Ministry of Health. He started the policy of restricting relief, and it has been extended by his successors. At the same time the Minister of Labour has been using every endeavour to cut down public assistance through the Insurance Act, and the only reason for it is to give the worker who is out of work no option but either to starve, to go to the workhouse or to blackleg his fellow men, and it is because the great captains of industry want to get the workman down that you are doing your level best to drive those who are unemployed into the position of blacklegs. You are not going to succeed in doing it because the working people are just a little more intelligent than they were 50 or 60 years ago. If they had not more intelligence than people who jeer at this sort of thing they would not have any intelligence at all. The policy of cutting down this assistance through the Insurance Act is part of the policy of depressing the working classes in order that you may get cheap labour. The Prime Minister has told us that the wages must come down not only of miners but of railwaymen and everyone else. This business is being done in order to assist the employers to get blacklegs. It used to be workhouse or starve or take whatever wages you can get.
It is no use the right hon. Gentleman laughing. He knows these facts. He sins against the light. No one knows better than he does the social and indus-
trial conditions I am speaking of, and he knows as well as I do that the physical deterioration, the physical and mental suffering of women, the starving of children, the making of a C3 population, has all come from this starving of men, women, and children when the breadwinner is out of work. There is not a man on that side of the House who would have dared to bring in a Measure like this wretched, mean Measure that we are discussing to-night. This is only one part of the iniquitous business. It is only one part of the swindling and robbery of the working class. You tell us you cannot afford it. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said we must economise, and the only people you can economise from are the poor little children of the casual worker in the East End of London. The only people you can economise on are the poor people who, you think, are absolutely friendless, and who live at any time on the border line of starvation. The right hon. Gentleman knows that the late Charles Booth investigated all these conditions, and over and over again in his books he demonstrated that physical, mental, and moral deterioration all came from the fact that men and women had not enough to live on. Here you are, years after the conclusion of the Armistice, and all you can do to deal with unemployment is to drive the unfortunate victims down, and to refuse them the maintenance that is their due. How long could hon. Members opposite live without income? How long would they live if someone was not earning profit for them? Let them go to their own homes—

HON. MEMBERS: Order!

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member must address himself to the particular question of Clause 3.

Mr. SPENCER: Who is in the Chair? Is it the duty of hon. Members opposite to call "Order," or is it your prerogative to call "Order"?

Mr. LANSBURY: I want to point out to you, Sir, and to the House that there is only one way of judging whether a thing is right or wrong. When you come to apply such a Clause as this to men and women, the one way of judging whether it is right is to apply it to yourselves. I saw the other morning in my home a man who had been one of the victims of the
right hon. Gentleman's mean and callous Measure. That man was starving. He has been dubbed a person not genuinely seeking work. I know what that man does in trying to get work. I know that he served during the War. He was one of the living wall to defend Britain against the German Huns. Could the German Huns do anything worse for him than starve him? Could the German Huns do anything worse than to drive poor men to pawn the wretched medals that you gave them? If hon. Member opposite were in that position, they would be with me in fighting this Bill to the bitter end. Hon. Members talk about saving money. This is being done to help the Chancellor of the Exchequer to save money. It is hoped to save £5,000,000 in this way. The other £1,500,000 will be saved out of the poor fathers and mothers by making them keep their grown-up children, although those grown-up children have paid and will have to pay again. You are going to take these £5,000,000 out of the stomachs of children and out of the men and women who are to be robbed by putting on this extra three days' waiting period.
There is no one in this House who, if they had to endure this sort of thing, would not feel as I do about it. If they had to face these men, they would say exactly what I am saying. The fact that the right hon. Gentleman knows all about these things, knows all about the evil results that will flow from this Bill proves that he is sinning against the light. He knows that the result of this Bill will be the slow murder of children, even before they are born. He knows, and we all know, by our social inquiries, that it is the starvation of the mother that starves the child before and after birth. You are going to rob the mother, you are going to rob the child before it is born, and you are going to rob it after it is born. You know perfectly well that the result will be inevitably an increase in the death rate amongst these children.
Within the last two or three years men driven to despair, not knowing what to do have killed their children, their wives and themselves. You come with me to the men and women down at Hackney Wick, where only the other day an unhappy man killed his family because he could not get assistance either from the Employment Exchange or the board of guardians. What about that South London case of
which we heard to-day? You all know that through this Bill you are going to accentuate human suffering to an extent which none of us can measure. None of us who have not suffered can measure what suffering means to other people. I trust that the day will come when the workers of the country will rise, and if you do not let them get what they need in a decent manner will come up here and take it. I am sick and tired of the unemployed just starving at home. I say to them and to you that I wish they would come out of their homes and do something to make a protest against these infamous conditions which exist to-day when you have the Government assisting the employers all over the country, and in addition helping them to drive the working people down in industry. And this is the Government that promise them full work that the Socialist Government could not give them at higher wages. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Your party said: "We are the people who can bring you better trade and who can give you work at decent wages," and all you can give them is starvation, more, starvation, and again starvation.

Mr. HARRIS: I think that this is a most unfortunate Clause, and I am not surprised that it has provoked opposition. During the last four years the patience of a very large part of the population has been very severely tried. Thousands of people have been in irregular employment for from one to four years. In London, perhaps, more than any other part of the country, there is a large amount of casual labour. You have in London none of the big industries, such as you have in the North of England, with highly orgnnised trade unions providing regular work at full rates, owing to the general circumstances of a capital city with large numbers of people out of work from time to time. I can confirm what the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) has said. The pressure upon the family budget has been immense, I have been surprised at the exemplary patience of people after four years of unemployment. Of course, the Insurance Act alone has made it possible to pull through. The concession made last year, I think I must say largely due to the efforts of Mr. Masterman and a number of Members above the Gangway, was one which was immensely
appreciated. You can go forward, but it is quite another thing to go back. Once you have made a concession of this kind it is a very serious proposition to take it away.
The Member for Bow and Bromley referred to the Poor Law. Members from the North of England have been talking a lot to-night about distressed areas. In the East End of London the strain on the Poor Law has been immense. It is time that by legislation it has been more spread over London than before the War, but in spite of that the strain on the Poor Law has been very heavy. It is a mistake to think that a remedy could be found in the Poor Law. There are thousands of men and women who, unless they were forced to it by very severe pressure would go for relief to the Poor Law Guardians. There is a reluctance to go to the Poor Law because of its associations built up by years of reactionary administration. Somehow or other they go without it.
There is quite a different attitude towards unemployment insurance. There is a feeling that they are getting help and assistance as a right and without any charity and that they have contributed their quota to the money they draw. Now the Minister comes along and says that the waiting period should be increased from three to six days. But the cupboard is bare. Where there was three or four years ago a certain amount of savings due to the prosperous times of the War, those savings have been eaten up. The rent goes on, whether a man is in work or out of work. The rent is always the first charge on the family budget. Kent has gone up 40 per cent. In the six days' waiting period the rent book has to be met. The landlord will not wait, and it is a remarkable thing to me that in the East End of London there is a tremendous honour about meeting the rent. It may be because of the shortage of houses or the difficulty of finding alternative accommodation if a man loses his home. There the first charge of rent has to be found even in the six days that the man is without benefit, and without anything coming into the home. It may be that he is forced on to the Poor Law. Anybody who knows Poor Law administration in London knows that the guardians already have to carry a burden more than they
are able to carry. Rates are high, expenses growing, the machinery of organisation is strained to breaking-point. It would be most unfortunate at a time of labour crisis like this that the message the Government has to send to the people, five years after the War, is that they are going to make it more difficult to get benefit and that they are going to set up difficulties and are going to increase the time that the people have to do without means.
This is a most unfortunate move on the part of the Government after being 19 months in office. We were assured that there was a new spirit in the Tory party, a new progressive spirit was to inspire it, and that there were young men behind the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has new ideals. This is an unfortunate answer. This is not a new Bill. It is an old Bill. It is a mutilated Bill—mutilated in the wrong direction, and I think this new Clause might very well be dropped. It would disappear, with no regret from any part of the country. The ratepayers will not regret it. The great ideal that the Tory party have adopted of insurance as opposed to poor law relief, will receive a set-back by the embodiment of this Clause in the Bill.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I heard most of the speeches with regard to Clause 3, and, as usual, I listened with particular interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury). I know he accuses me of sinning against the light, and suggests that this Clause bears peculiarly hardly on the casual worker—whom he knows well and whom I know no less well—down in the East End of London and other places. I do not deny for a moment that if there is money to be saved under this Clause it must come from somewhere, but I do say to the hon. Member that it is not the casual worker who bears the chief brunt. Of course, the money has to be saved. I am not pretending that it comes like manna from Heaven. I have always thought, as the hon. Member knows, that possibly the greatest hardship in industry is the hardship of the casual labourer. Among many hard conditions casual labour has probably produced the most, but I Would point out that casual labourers are not peculiarly hard hit in this Bill, and I think, if anything, they hear rather less of the burden than others.

Mr. LANSBURY: Do they bear any of the burden, and, if so, why should they?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Exactly. I am coming to that. The hon. Member in his speech said that they were singled out and were particularly hard hit. That, to the best of my knowledge, is not the case.

Mr. LANSBURY: The clerk to the guardians has made provision for extra thousands—I will not charge my memory with the exact number—for the next half year, anticipating this Bill.

11.0 P.M.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: What the hon. Member suggests as to casual labour is not the case. I have tried to explain the matter before, and perhaps the hon. Member is acquainted with it, but he will forgive me if I mention it again. When you get casual labour, the probability is that the operation of the continuity rule relieves them more than it relieves people who have more regular spells of work. The operation of the continuity rule is this: You reckon by periods of three days' unemployment in any six, and where you have two such periods, you can have five or even six whole weeks occurring between the two, and yet by the operation of the continuity rule that gap is bridged, and in cases of that kind no fresh waiting period has to be served. That is a provision which applies, I think, more to casual labour than to any other, just for the very reason that the labour is casual. T know the hon. Member objects to the thing as a whole, and I am not trying or hoping really to overcome his objections, but I am pointing out that, so far as the casual labourer is concerned—and I have always said that the casuality of labour is the cause of the worst hardship—he is less hit under the rule than other classes, and it is by reason of the operation of that continuity rule.
Perhaps the hon. Member thinks it is not necessary to try to balance finance, but while I do realise that necessity, and accept it, I have done my best to see that the savings to he effected by the Bill bear least heavily where they can least be afforded. It is for precisely that reason, just in connection with changes of this kind, that I have been following out an idea which I had before the hon.
Member made his last speech in this House, to which I listened with very great interest. I was myself much interested in the case of the young men who have not got the training to which he referred. I can only say that I do not suppose I shall get his support, whether for this or any other Measure, but at least I have instituted since then training centres to meet just that kind of case, so that I hope he will realise that, while I do not pretend to get agreement from the benches opposite, I am trying to see how the burden can be adjusted so that the heaviness can least be felt.
In regard to the Clause generally, I say at once, as I said at the beginning, that if money has to be found, there are people who have to find it, and if one could get manna from heaven, quite naturally one would have benefits greater and contributions less, and so on. But I am really looking to the balance of finance under the schemes of social insurance as a whole, and also under this particular scheme, and it is no good thinking that under certain industrial conditions increased benefits can be maintained without having any regard to the expense involved. It is absolutely essential. Hon. Members opposite may attack the Government and me because we have not reduced unemployment. They may do that, and it is open to them to do it.

Mr. WALLHEAD: As you did last year.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I never promised at any time work for all or good wages or said that any Government could do much. At any rate when you have the degree of unemployment that you have at this moment, and with the burden that it causes, expenses and incomings have to be adjusted together, and the rate of benefits has to bear some relation to the rate of contributions. It is from that point of view that, when the waiver is continued, and when the rate of benefit is continued at its full amount, I am trying to see how things can balance, and, taking all in all, this is how the burden can be so adjusted as to bear least hardly. I have dealt with the case of casual labour and the effect on casual labour of the continuity rule, and it is those people who have been in employment for a certain time on whom the extension of the waiting period falls
rather than on those who are in casual work from day to day. That is the case with regard to the burden.
The hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. T. Thomson) spoke of the local ratepayers. As I pointed out, both the extension of the waiting period and the use of the waiver, if there is need to get a financial balance at all, are the two methods which will probably be best able to be borne and are least likely to cause a burden on the local rates. It is perfectly true that the charge on the local ratepayer in the Poor Law unions was reduced after the Bill of last year, but by far the greater proportion of that reduction was due to the increase in the rate of benefits, which has not been touched, and far the lesser proportion of it was due, either to the use of the discretion or to the waiting period.
I would only ask the House to bear in mind one other consideration. When a plea is put forward for industry and the taxpayer and the contributor, the whole country, the taxpayer and the local ratepayers, have all got to be considered together, the increased Exchequer contributions have got to be taken into account, the relief to the contributor, who is the workman, the relief to the business which gives the employers contribution—all that has got to be taken into account together. From that point of view I say that quite undue exaggeration, to my mind, has been laid on the amount of the burden which is likely to be put on the local rates and ratepayers and on business generally. I submit to the House that if you look on what is really being done in the matter of social services by the Government, that the continuation of the waiver and the relief to the contributor is the fairest and most equitable adjustment and enables the burden, so far as there is any burden, to be borne where it is least heavily felt.

Mr. T. SHAW: I have heard very little attempt to justify this Clause. The Minister is evidently of opinion that figures are more important than the unemployed. He has made no attempt to prove that the unemployed can afford to "play," or can bear the taking away of three days, and he has said nothing to indicate that they are in a position to bear the burden. The tenor of his song was, "We shall save £5,000,000, and there is an end to it."

Mr. LANSBURY: Somebody has got to Pay.

Mr. SHAW: I cannot understand the frame of mind of the Government on this matter. Possibly I cannot understand it because of little things that have taken place in my experience. May I tell a little story to the House, in order to explain why some of us look upon these things with different eyes. When I worked in the mill in Lancashire, I worked next to one of the finest workmen that God ever put the breath of life into, one of the best workers I ever met in my life. He was a man of exceptional character; thrifty, sober and honest. I went to Lancashire one week-end and found that, as a result of unemployment and privation that man, who was one of the finest men God ever made, had thrown himself in front of a train and ended it all. That is the type of man we are thinking of. You can talk to us about your £5,000,000 until the moon turns blue: we shall still look at the human being and not the £5,000,000. What does your £5,000,000 mean to the Exchequer? In round figures, it is £1,250,000, and if the Government tell us they cannot afford to pay that sum to the unemployed, we say to the Government, it is humbug, pure and simple humbug. They can find any number of millions when it pleases their politics, when it pleases their friends, when it pleases their policy, but they can take from the unemployed, just at the time of the unemployed's greatest need. Are these men so well-to-do that they can go a week without wages? Take two of the largest industries of the country—one, the largest exporting industry before the War, the other, I think, the second—coal and cotton. There has Scarcely been a full week's wages in the cotton trade for the last five years, and when these people begin to play, not on stock that they have saved while working, but on debts already standing against them, all that the Government say is, "We shall save £5,000,000 on this Fund; you live a week on nothing at all." It is no use saying that this will make no difference to the Poor Law and to the guardians. If the Minister will take the trouble to look at the figures of the Ministry of Health find his own figures, he will find that the numbers put on the Unemployment Insurance Fund by the 1924 Act are strikingly similar to the
diminution in the numbers of those applying to the guardians. Is there no connection between these figures, and is it merely a coincidence? I suggest that that striking similarity in figures is due to the fact that the expense of unemployment was put where it ought to be, and taken from the shoulders of those who never ought to have borne it.
I would like either the Minister or some speaker on the opposite benches to try to prove to us that these people are really in a condition to bear the deprivation of this £5,000,000. No attempt has yet been made to do so. Money, money, money; figures, figures, figures; Fund, Fund, Fund; gold, gold, gold—humanity in the background! Mammon is your God; the actuary's report is your Bible. If the unemployed took what they are entitled to, it would not be £5,000,000. Every member of the unemployed who is an ex-soldier—and there are hundreds of thousands of them—is entitled to this Fund. One gets sick and tired of the unhealthy humbug that is talked about this Fund, of the broken promises made to these men, and of the slobber that was thrown over them when they came back from the War, and the treatment they now get. I do not understand the position of the Government. I demonstrated conclusively the other day that with the full unemployment benefit it was impossible to spend more than a penny per head for meals for the unemployed family drawing the maximum contribution from the Unemployment Fund. And yet there are people who will take away from the unemployed part of that they now get. If I were in need, I would take it before I would starve. If it meant fighting, although I am a man of peace, I would fight before I would starve. You are prepared to take these millions from these men, men who do not know where they are going to get the next pair of boots, or whether they can afford a little bit of meat once a day. [An HON. MEMBER: "Rubbish!"] "Rubbish" is very appropriate in the mouth of the hon. Member opposite. Every man who belongs to an industrial constituency, every man who lives in Lancashire knows that what I am saying is true, and any man who denies it denies what is true. I have been back to the places that I knew before the War
—one place was a most prosperous town—and I have wondered how my friends have, got along the years that have elapsed since 1918 and 1919. How they have lived is a mystery to me. It is extraordinary that the more the suffering grows the more the people are punished. They have to be punished for the fault of the Government, which cannot make peace in the world. The average wage of the Lancashire cotton worker, I know, particularly during the last five years, has not been 30s. a week. What can a man do with that, and a man perhaps with a wife and family? Yet you say that if a man "plays" he must pay for the first week out of his wages, "then we will give you assistance." Why do you do this? Because there is £5,000,000 that someone wants to balance his accounts with. There was no reason why the Minister of Labour should have introduced this Bill at all. A one-Clause Bill would have maintained the present state of affairs until the Bill expired next year.
The Minister has never yet demonstrated that the people from whom the money is to be taken can bear the loss. He has never demonstrated that it was right to take it. He has never demonstrated that it was in accordance with the whole system of insurance in this country that they should bear this loss. In health insurance have you a waiting period of three days? Under the workmen's compensation you are paid from the first day if you do not work for a fortnight. This is the only insurance scheme in the whole of our insurance system where a man or a woman is to be asked to do this. Why, I simply cannot understand; and I do not know why the Government have never taken the trouble to explain! We have tried to get facts and figures out of them. We have literally tried to extract them like extracting a cork with a cork-screw. They have never attempted to demonstrate that their policy was fair or that it was good; always we have had the reiteration of the phrase, "We save £6,500,000 a year for the fund." I can only repeat what I have said before, that you can save money for the fund at the expense of something that is far more precious than money. These people are far more precious than six and a-half millions of money. They have a right, an absolute right, on the State, to be
looked after. Hundreds of thousands of them went to the War. These are the men you are punishing, and you are punishing them doubly, because if they still remain with their parents you are refusing them ordinary benefits as well as making them wait a week when they have any benefits to draw.
This is what this brilliant Bill of the Government is doing—a Government with a huge majority, a Government full of promises, a Government with St. John the Baptist at its head, a Government full of reformers, burning with zeal for social reform, a Government of all the talents, of all the culture, of all the knowledge of the ages, and its first concrete action, with regard to unemployment, and the only concrete action with regard to unemployment, is to steal £6,500,000 from the unemployed. I compliment the right hon. Gentleman on his Bill. If, in finishing my remarks, I may make a suggestion to him, I should suggest that he should give these men a loin cloth each and a handful of rice, and make coolies of them.

Mr. KELLY: In supporting the Amendment, I want to deal with one or two other parts of the country as against Lancashire, which has been dealt with by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Preston (Mr. Shaw). I wish to refer to Macclesfield and its industries, in view of the interjection we have just had. We might change from Macclesfield, and talk of the timber trade and the wages that are paid there in order to show that even when a full week is worked, there are no savings to be made out of which people can exist for the period of six days. It is bad enough as it is, with a three days' waiting period; people have to borrow or to get assistance to carry them through that period. Now that the Government are suggesting a six days' period it will mean something of starvation for these people, who become unemployed, as so many of them are becoming unemployed. Take the silk trade and the artificial silk trade of which we heard so much during the Budget discussions. I have often wondered whether in his interruptions the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Remer) would fling across the House the wages that are paid in that industry. The artificial silk industry, a luxury industry, if I may borrow the
Chancellor of the Exchequer's word, pays less than 50s. a week for a full week's work. Can the Minister show that there is a penny to be saved out of that wage? I am giving more than the wage that is paid.
I put it to him that the timber trade—perhaps the hon. Member for Macclesfield will deal with this point—is paying less than that to many of those engaged in that trade. Does any hon. Member suggest that a wage like that is sufficient to make provision for a six days waiting period during unemployment. We are also taking away by this measure any payment to those who are working short time, and those who are on three days a week, and if we divide the 50s. a week by two, making the wage 25s., then this Bill says that those with 25s. a week on short time have no right to receive benefit from unemployment insurance.
That is the man's side. But I want to take the woman's side. There are women engaged in this trade at wages between 30s. and 33s. a week, and where they are on short time it means that they receive in wages about 15s. or 16s. a week, and the Government say "from you, with 15s. a week, we are going to take away even that benefit which is due to you under the Bill which is operating at the present time." It is not only in those industries that we find that the Government is taking this benefit away. We find that even in the case of those employed by the right hon. Gentlemen in the service of the Ministry of Labour women are receiving 17s. a week and 19s. a week and I ask if there is any margin there to provide for a six days' waiting period. Is the First Lord of the Admiralty prepared to say that the thousands of workmen employed in the dockyards are able to save anything for this purpose out of 47s. a week? Is there any margin there to provide for the period of unemployment which will enable them to get over the six days' waiting period? I say that there is no man in this country who can maintain a family decently on 47s. a week, and on that wage they can only exist at a semi-starvation level. I am prepared to prove that, and I think I did prove it during the Committee stage. At any rate no hon. or right hon. Gentleman during the Committee stage attempted to prove that a man could maintain a family on a wage of 47s. a
week. What I have just said applies equally to the War Office, to the workers in Birmingham, and those who work in the constituency of the hon. Member for Moseley (Mr. Hannon)—

Mr. SPEAKER: I think I have allowed the hon. Member considerable latitude by way of illustration, but I cannot permit him to range over the whole country.

Mr. KELLY: We have been told that on those who are in full employment this would press less hardly because the benefit would be sufficient to enable them to tide over that particular period. What I wanted to show was that, so far as the majority of the people who come on to unemployment benefit are concerned, when they are working full time—let alone the half time or short time that is worked so much in the country—they have nothing left each week that will enable them to wait for the longer period which is put into this Measure I need merely instance those cases in which the wages paid are much less than the 47s. and 50s. that I quoted at first—wages of 35s., such as are paid in the engineering trade, and 40s. in the engineering trade in Birmingham. I will leave it at that so far as the men are concerned.
As to the women, who are also included, actually the women employed in preparing, as I told the Committee, the materials and textiles for the Royal Yacht and the Admirals' cabins in the Naval Service, get 35s. a week—widows, with families to maintain; and they are expected to have a margin that would enable them to wait for this six-day period. If there is one fault to be found with us, it is that even we are being satisfied with the three days' waiting period which is in operation at the present time. I am not, like the late Minister of Labour, going to appeal to the Government, but I do hope that even at this stage something is going to break in upon them to show them that they are doing, not merely an injustice, but something even worse, to the people of this country.
They say they have to consider those who have contributed to the Fund. I wonder whom they mean by those who contributed to the Fund. I know of dozens of people who contributed to the Fund during the period from 1914 to 1919,
people who went out of insurable employment; and they never complained, they never asked that they should receive back their contributions, they have never asked that other people's conditions should be worsened at this time. Speaking, as one can, for people engaged in something like 100 industries in this country, I have never once heard those who are in full employment, or those who are on short time in the industries, ask for any worsening of the conditions of those who are unfortunate enough to he unemployed. This is a vicious proposal, a proposal that one is astounded to find being made at this time. I hope it will be understood by the people outside, and that they will rise up against it.

Mr. BECKETT: I should not, after the right hon. Gentleman's reply, raise further matters in this discussion, were it not for the very deplorable manner in which this Clause, is going to affect a considerable number of people who have not so far had their case put in the Debate on this Clause. I listened with very great attention to what I suppose must by courtesy be called the Minister's reply to the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury), and I regret very much that the right hon. Gentleman should by some unfortunate accident have been in charge of the introduction of such an iniquitous Clause. For five years I lived amongst the casual workers of the East End, who have been mentioned as being affected by this Clause, and I know that the right hon. Gentleman knows their condition as much as I do. He knows it as well as anybody in this House, or as any of these unfortunate people who will suffer in East London from the deplorable effects of what he is going to do, and I am sure he knows that, when his actions have to be judged in the future, no amount of personal courtesy and charity will wipe out acts of public iniquity of this kind.
He particularly said, in his reply to hon. Members on this side, that the casual labourers were not peculiarly hit, but were only hit, perhaps, to the same extent as other classes of workers. The point I want to put forward for the consideration of the House is that, thanks to the policy since the Armistice of the party on the opposite side of the House, ably supported by some Members on the Liberal Benches, almost every class of worker in
this country is casual at the present moment. On Tyneside we have our engineers and boilermakers and shipbuilders. Further out from there we have miners and iron and steel workers. Nearly all those men are casual workers at the moment, working half a day, one day, two days, or, if they are very fortunate indeed, three days a week, and their wages are no better, or hardly any better, than those of the lowest-paid casual workers. The shipyard worker is extremely fortunate and has to be very skilled on Tyneside if he can earn as much as 45s. or 47s. 6d. a week. How on earth are men who are working three days a week for two or three weeks to save enough to keep them in the interval which the right hon. Gentleman is so callously placing upon them in this Bill? It simply cannot be done. It means that you will drive them to an even worse stage of despondency than they are in at present. It means that you will make the lives of these men and their women folk thoroughly miserable in order to save your miserable £5,000,000. It means that you will deliberately cramp the chances of development of hundreds of thousands of children. And then you bring in an iniquitous measure like this. You vote for it and go away again refusing to allow yourselves to imagine the appalling conditions that you are deliberately creating, not only amongst the Bow and Poplar casual workers, not only the miners in Yorkshire and Nottingham and the Midlands, but in almost every skilled industry. The Government have first of all deliberately, with their eyes open, degraded the condition of all the finest workers of the land to that of casual labourers and then beat down their wages to such an extent that their purchasing power has gone and they have no power to supply the natural market for their goods, and then, by careful juggling with the Unemployment Insurance Act and the measures introduced by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Preston (Mr. Shaw) last year, after they have robbed these men of their regular work they have proceeded to rob them of even the small pittance that will enable them to keep body and soul and some kind of respectable home together. Earlier in the debate the Parliamentary Secretary told us about the history of the unemployment insurance scheme. He forgot to say it was really
not insurance against unemployment at all. It was really in the first place insurance against revolution. That is what it was brought in for. That was its purpose. There comes a time when constitutional methods must give way, and the patience of the poor has lasted long enough. If this Clause is to go through, if they are to be deprived of the small sop you give them in order to keep them patient, I hope we shall do our best to see that it comes about that we shall abandon all hope of reasoning with you by persuasion, that men who can do cruel and callous things of this sort are hardly worth sharing the same atmosphere within the House of Commons, and that we will go to the country and say even the Conservative majority cannot stand against a determined and sullen people, and we will advise the unemployed to make their lives a misery to them, to come out from their homes, to come out from the misery in which they are going to starve under your miserable Clause and wait for you on the Great North Road when you go up to murder birds on the 12th.

Mr. SPEAKER: That might be more suitable to-morrow than on this particular Amendment.

Mr. BECKETT: I was just finishing. If the Clause be carried, I hope the unemployed will refuse to suffer patiently but will take every means in their power to make the lives of the men responsible a nuisance to them.

Captain BENN: We are specially interested in this Clause, because it was an Amendment accepted by the late Government, and moved by hon. Members on these benches, which reduced last year the waiting period from six days to three days. If there was a case for reducing the waiting period last year, the case is far stronger this year, because the reserves of the people have been much diminished by unemployment and hardship. Therefore it cannot be any surprise that we stand to-night by this Amendment for fixing the three days waiting period, as we, were the authors of the Amendment last year reducing the waiting period to three days. We feel strongly the hardship which is placed upon these unfortunate people, the un-
employed. There is a further point. The Government are great supporters of the contributory principle. They believe that there is more merit in making people pay for their benefits. I am not concerned to argue as to the best way of running an insurance scheme, but it is clear that those who earnestly support the payment of contributions from the other side should equally earnestly support the demand for the payment of benefits when contributions have been made.
One of the great demerits of this Clause as against Clause 1, which only deals with extended benefits, is that it deprives people who are in full stamps of the standard benefit to which they are entitled. We are not here dealing with any charitable benefit or any benefit given in advance of contribution, but benefit for which people have paid and for which their cards are fully stamped. The Clause is estimated to save £5,000,000. The finance of this scheme unless we get good news to-morrow will be entirely futile. It will break down if the worst happens to-morrow. Assuming that things go no worse, then £5,000,000 will be saved by this Clause. How much of that £5,000,000 is being taken by reducing the period of waiting, how much is being taken from the insured persons who are asking for extended benefit, and how much from those persons who are unemployed who are fully stamped and who are only asking for standard benefit?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Approximately half and half.

Captain BENN: Then you are depriving of £2,500,000 those insured persons who have paid and who under the present law are fully entitled to benefit. What hon. Members opposite mean by the contributory principle is contribution. They are ready enough to insist upon contribution and ready enough to support the Government in that respect, but when the people ask for the benefit for which they have contractual rights you deprive them of it.

Question put, "That the words pro posed to be left out to the word 'have' in page 2, line 13, stand part of the Bill."

The House divided: Ayes, 191; Noes, 120.

Division No. 330.]
 AYES.
[9.27 p.m.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)
Gibbins, Joseph
Lowth, T.


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Gillett, George M.
Lunn, William


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')
Gosling, Harry
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Aberavon)


Ammon, Charles George
Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Macdonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness)


Attlee, Clement Richard
Greenall, T.
Mackinder, W.


Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston)
Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)
MacLaren, Andrew


Baker, Walter.
Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
March, S.


Barnes, A.
Groves, T.
Maxton, James


Barr, J.
Grundy, T. W.
Montague, Frederick


Batey, Joseph
Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)


Beckett, John (Gateshead)
Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Murnin, H.


Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)
Hardie, George D.
Naylor, T. E.


Bromley, J.
Harris, Percy A.
Oliver, George Harold


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon
Owen, Major G.


Buchanan, G.
Hayday, Arthur
Paling, W.


Cape, Thomas
Hayes, John Henry
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)


Charleton, H. C.
Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley)
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.


Clowes, S.
Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Ponsonby, Arthur


Cluse, W. S.
Hirst, G. H.
Potts, John S.


Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.
Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)
Purcell, A. A.


Compton, Joseph.
Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)


Cove, W. G.
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Ritson, J.


Crawfurd, H. E.
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Bromwich)


Dalton, Hugh
Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)
Robertson, J. (Lanark, Bothwell)


Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)
Jones J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)
Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W.R., Elland)


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter


Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Saklatvala, Shapurji


Day, Colonel Harry
Kelly, W. T.
Salter, Dr. Alfred


Dennison, R.
Kennedy, T.
Scrymgeour, E.


Dunnico, H.
Kirkwood, D.
Scurr, John


Duncan, C.
Lansbury, George
Sexton, James


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Lawson, John James
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)


Edwards, John H. (Accrington)
Lee, F.
Shiels, Dr. Drummond


Forrest, W.
Livingstone, A. M.
Sitch, Charles H.


Slesser, Sir Henry H.
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.


Smillie, Robert
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)
Whiteley, W.


Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)
Tinker, John Joseph
Wilkinson, Ellen C.


Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley)
Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.
Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)


Smith, Rennie (Penistone)
Varley, Frank B.
Williams, David (Swansea, E.)


Snell, Harry
Viant, S. P.
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip
Wallhead, Richard C.
Williams, T. (York. Don Valley)


Spencer, G. A. (Broxtowe)
Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Stamford, T. W.
Warne, G. H.
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Stephen. Campbell
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)
Windsor, Walter


Sutton, J. E.
Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)
Wright, W.


Taylor, R. A.
Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah



Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)
Welsh, J. C.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Thomson, Trevelyan (Middlesbro, W.)
Westwood, J.
Sir Godfrey Collins and Sir Robert




Hutchison.


NOES.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.)
Little, Dr. E. Graham


Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.
Everard, W. Lindsay
Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)


Allen, J. Sandeman (L'pool, W. Derby)
Fairfax, Captain J. G.
Loder, J. de V.


Applin, Colonel R. V. K.
Falle, Sir Bertram G.
Lord, Walter Greaves-


Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.
Fanshawe, Commander G. D.
Lougher, L.


Astbury, Lieut.-Commander F. W.
Fielden, E. B.
Luce, Major-Gen. Sir Richard Harman


Atkinson, C.
Finburgh, S.
Lumley, L. R.


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Fleming, D. P.
MacAndrew, Charles Glen


Banks, Reginald Mitchell
Ford, P. J.
Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Forestier-Walker, Sir L.
Macdonald, R. (Glasgow, Cathcart)


Barnett, Major Sir Richard
Foster, Sir Harry S.
McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus


Beamish, Captain T. P. H.
Foxcroft, Captain C. T.
McLean, Major A.


Beckett, Sir Gervase (Leeds, N.)
Fremantle, Lt.-Col. Francis E.
Macmillan, Captain H.


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Galbraith, J. F. W.
Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Ganzoni, Sir John
McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John


Bethell, A.
Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham
MacRobert, Alexander M.


Betterton. Henry B.
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Glyn, Major R. G. C.
Malone, Major P. B.


Bird, Sir R. B. (Wolverhampton, W.)
Goff, Sir Park
Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn


Blundell, F. N.
Grant, J. A.
Mason, Lieut.-Col. Glyn K.


Boothby, R. J. G.
Greene. W. P. Crawford
Meller, R. J.


Bourne. Captain Robert Croft
Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)
Merriman, F. B.


Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.
Gretton, Colonel John
Mever, Sir Frank


Boyd-Carpenter, Major A.
Grotrian, H. Brent
Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)


Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)


Briscoe, Richard George
Gunston, Captain D. W.
Monsell, Eyres, Corn. Rt. Hon. B. M.


Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)


Broun-Lindsay, Major H.
Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)
Moore, Sir Newton J.


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y)
Hall, Vice-Admiral Sir R. (Eastbourne)
Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C.


Buckingham, Sir H.
Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.)
Morrison, H. (Wilts. Salisbury)


Bullock, Captain M.
Hanbury, C.
Morrison, Bell, Sir Arthur Clive


Burman, J. B.
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Nelson, Sir Frank


Burney, Lieut.-Com. Charles D.
Harland, A.
Neville, R. J.


Burton, Colonel H. W.
Harrison, G. J. C.
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)


Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward
Harvey, G. (Lambeth, Kennington)
Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)


Campbell, E. T.
Haslam, Henry C.
Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert


Cassels, J. D.
Hawke, John Anthony
Nuttall, Ellis


Cazalet, Captain Victor A.
Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.
Oakley, T.


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxford, Henley)
O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton)


Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton
Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)
O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh


Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)
Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.
Oman, Sir Charles William C.


Chapman, Sir S.
Henn, Sir Sydney H.
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William


Charteris, Brigadier-General J.
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.
Pennefather, Sir John


Christie, J. A.
Herbert, Dennis (Hertford. Watford)
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)


Clarry, Reginald George
Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone)
Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)


Clayton, G. C.
Homan, C. W. J.
Pilcher, G.


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Hopkins, J. W. W.
Pilditch, Sir Philip


Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.
Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)
Power, Sir John Cecil


Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N.
Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Howard, Capt. Hon. D. (Cumb., N.)
Price, Major C. W. M.


Cope, Major William
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Raine, W.


Courthope, Lieut.-Col. Sir George L.
Hudson, R. S. (Cumb'l'nd, Whiteh'n)
Ramsden, E.


Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry
Hume, Sir G. H.
Rawlinson, Rt. Hon. John Fredk. Peel


Crookshank, Cpt. H. (Lindsey, Gainsbro)
Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis
Rawson, Alfred Cooper


Curzon, Captain Viscount
Hunter-Weston. Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer
Reid, D. D. (County Down)


Dalziel, Sir Davison
Hurd, Percy A.
Remer, J. R.


Davidson, J. (Hertf'd, Hemel Hempst'd)
Hurst, Gerald B.
Rentoul, G. S.


Davidson, Major-General Sir John H.
Hutchison, G. A. Clark (Midl'n & P'bl's)
Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.


Davies, A. V. (Lancaster, Royton)
Jackson, Sir H. (Wandsworth, Cen'l)
Rice, Sir Frederick


Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Jacob, A. E.
Richardson. Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)


Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)
Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)
Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)


Dawson, Sir Philip
Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)
Ropner, Major L.


Dean, Arthur Wellesley
Kidd, J. (Linlithgow)
Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.


Drewe, C.
King, Captain Henry Douglas
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Edmondson, Major A. J.
Knox, Sir Alfred
Rye, F. G.


Elliot, Captain Walter E.
Leigh, Sir John (Clapham)
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)




Sandeman, A. Stewart
Storry Deans, R.
Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)


Sanderson, Sir Frank
Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.
Wilson, R. R. (Statford, Lichfield)


Sandon, Lord
Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C.
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Sheffield, Sir Berkeley
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Shepperson, E. W.
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid
Wise, Sir Fredric


Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)
Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)
Womersley, W. J.


Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfast)
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)
Wood, Rt. Hon. E. (York, W.R., Ripon)


Slaney, Major P. Kenyon
Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W. Mitchell-
Wood. E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'ge & Hyde)


Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)
Tinne, J. A.
Wood, Sir Kingsley (Woolwich, W.).


Smithers, Waldron
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement
Woodcock, Colonel H. C.


Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Wallace, Captain D. E.
Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Spender Clay. Colonel H.
Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L. (Kingston-on-Hull)
Wragg, Herbert


Sprot, Sir Alexander
Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.



Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Will'sden, E.)
Waterhouse, Captain Charles
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Stanley, Lord (Fylde)
Watts, Dr. T.
Major Sir Harry Barnston and


Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland)
Wells, S. R.
Captain Margesson


Steel, Major Samuel Strang
White Lieut.-Colonel G. Dairymple



Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill." put, and agreed to.

Division No. 331.]
AYES.
[11.46 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William


Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.
Glyn, Major R. G. C.
Pennefather, Sir John


Allen, J. Sandeman (L'pool, W. Derby)
Grant, J. A.
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Greene. W. P. Crawford
Peto, Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)


Applin, Colonel R. V. K.
Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)
Power, Sir John Cecil


Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.
Gretton, Colonel John
Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton


Atholl, Duchess of
Gunston, Captain D. W.
Price, Major C. W. M.


Atkinson, C.
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Ramsden, E.


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)
Rawlinson, Rt. Hon. John Fredk. Peel


Balniel, Lord
Hall, Vice-Admiral Sir R. Eastbourne)
Rawson, Alfred Cooper


Barnett, Major Sir Richard
Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.)
Reid, Capt. A. S. C. (Warrington)


Beamish, Captain T. P. H.
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Remer, J. R.


Beckett, Sir Gervase (Leeds, N.)
Harland, A.
Rice, Sir Frederick


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Harrison, G. J. C.
Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Haslam, Henry C.
Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)


Betterton, Henry B.
Hawke, John Anthony
Ropner, Major L.


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.
Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.


Blundell, F. N.
Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd, Henley)
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Boothby, R. J. G.
Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)


Bourne, Captain Robert Croft
Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.
Sandeman, A. Stewart


Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.
Henn, Sir Sydney H.
Sanderson, Sir Frank


Boyd-Carpenter, Major A.
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.
Sandon, Lord


Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone)
Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.


Briscoe, Richard George
Hopkins, J. W. W.
Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W.R., Sowerby)


Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.
Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N.
Shepperson, E. W.


Buckingham, Sir H.
Howard, Capt. Hon. D. (Cumb., N.)
Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)


Bullock, Captain M.
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfast)


Burgoyne, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Alan
Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer
Slaney, Major P. Kenyon


Burman, J. B.
Hutchison, G. A. Clark (Midl'n & P'bl's)
Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)


Burton, Colonel H. W.
Jackson, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. F. S.
Smithers, Waldron


Cassels, J. D.
Jacob, A. E.
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)


Cazalet, Captain Victor A.
Kidd, J. (Linlithgow)
Spender Clay, Colonel H.


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
King, Captain Henry Douglas
Sprot, Sir Alexander


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord H. (Ox. Univ.)
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Stanley, Lord (Fylde)


Charteris, Brigadier-General J.
Lamb, J. Q.
Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Will'sden, E.)


Christie J. A.
Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland)


Clarry, Reginald George
Little Dr. E. Graham
Steel, Major Samuel Strang


Clayton, G. C.
Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)
Storry Deans, R.


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Loder, J. de V.
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.
Luce, Major-Gen. Sir Richard Harman
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser


Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Lumley, L. R.
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)


Cope, Major William
MacAndrew, Charles Glen
Tinne, J. A.


Courthope, Lieut.-Col. George L.
Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.
Macdonald, R. (Glasgow, Cathcart)
Wallace, Captain D. E.


Crookshank, Cpt. H. (Lindsey, Gainsbro)
McLean, Major A.
Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.


Curzon, Captain Viscount
Macmillan, Captain H.
Waterhouse, Captain Charles


Davidson, J. (Hertf'd, Hemel Hempst'd)
Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm
Watts, Dr. T.


Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John
Wells, S. R.


Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)
MacRobert, Alexander M.
White, Lieut.-Colonel G. Dalrymple


Dean, Arthur Wellesley
Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel
Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)


Doyle, Sir N. Grattan
Marriott, Sir J. A. R.
Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)


Drewe, C.
Mason, Lieut.-Col. Glyn K.
Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield)


Edmondson. Major A. J.
Merriman, F. B.
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Fanshawe, Commander G. D.
Meyer, Sir Frank
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Fielden, E. B.
Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)
Wise, Sir Fredric


Finburgh, S.
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.
Wolmer, Viscount


Fleming, D. P.
Moore, Sir Newton J.
Womersley, W. J.


Ford, P. J.
Morden, Col. W. Grant
Wood, E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'ge & Hyde)


Forestier-Walker, Sir L.
Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive
Wood, Rt. Hon. E. (York, W.R., Ripon)


Foxcroft, Captain C. T.
Nail, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Joseph
Woodcock, Colonel H. C.


Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Neville, R. J.
Wragg, Herbert


Galbraith, J. F. W.
Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert



Ganzoni, Sir John
Nuttall, Ellis
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Gates, Percy
O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh
Sir Harry Barnston and Captain


Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham
Oakley, T.
Margesson.




NOES.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)
Cape, Thomas
Duncan, C.


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Charleton, H. C.
Dunnico, H.


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')
Clowes, S.
Edwards, John H. (Accrington)


Ammon, Charles George
Cluse, W. S.
Garro-Jones, Captain G. M.


Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston)
Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.
Gibbins, Joseph


Barnes, A.
Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)
Gillett, George M.


Barr, J.
Compton, Joseph
Greenall, T.


Batey, Joseph
Crawfurd, H. E.
Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)


Beckett, John (Gateshead)
Dalton, Hugh
Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)


Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)
Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)
Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)


Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish-
Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Groves, T.


Bromley, J.
Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)
Grundy, T. W.


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Day, Colonel Harry
Guest, J. (York. Hemsworth)


Buchanan, G.
Dennison, R.
Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)




Harris, Percy A.
Murnin, H.
Stephen, Campbell


Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon
Naylor, T. E.
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid


Hayday, Arthur
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Sutton, J. E.


Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Burnley)
Paling, W.
Taylor, R. A.


Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.
Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)


Hirst, G. H.
Ponsonby, Arthur
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)


Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)
Potts, John S.
Tinker, John Joseph


Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)
Purcell, A. A.
Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.


Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Viant, S. P.


Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Riley, Ben
Warne, G. H.


John, William (Rhondda, West)
Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Bromwich)
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)
Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W.R., Elland)
Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)


Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)
Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter
Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah


Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Saklatvala, Shapurji
Westwood, J.


Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Salter, Dr. Alfred
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.


Kelly, W. T.
Scrymgeour, E.
Whiteley, W.


Kennedy, T.
Scurr, John
Wilkinson, Ellen C.


Kirkwood, D.
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Lansbury, George
Shiels, Dr. Drummond
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Lawson, John James
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)


Lee, F.
Sitch, Charles H.
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Livingstone, A. M.
Slesser, Sir Henry H.
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Lunn, William
Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)
Windsor, Walter


MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J, R. (Aberavon)
Snell, Harry



Mackinder, W.
Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


March, S.
Spencer, George A. (Broxtowe)
Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr.


Maxton, James
Stamford, T. W.
Hayes.


Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)

Mr. LUKE THOMPSON: I beg to move, in page 2, line 13, after the word "shall" to insert the words
from the first day of December, nineteen hundred and twenty-five.
I want to say that anyone who is moving such an Amendment as I am doing this evening must have a real reason for so doing seeing I have already registered my vote against the Clause that we have just been considering. There seems to be, in many directions, complete ambiguity as to the nature of the Clause. I want to register my profound disapproval as the representative of one of the greatest industrial constituencies in the country, because I believe it will inflict extreme hardship.

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must not go back on the preceding Debate, which dealt with the Clause as a whole The Amendment deals solely with the matter of the date, and the hon. Member must confine his remarks to that point.

Mr. THOMPSON: I did not know, Sir, whether or not you would allow me to explain—to some extent at any rate—the general reasons for this Amendment. I think, however, as a Division has been taken on the Clause as a whole, that this is an opportune moment for suggesting an extension of the period which is to elapse before the Clause comes into operation. According to the provisions of the Bill, this Clause will come into operation some fourteen days after the passing of the Bill, and that period is inadequate. We should, at least, have
some extension. It might be urged that the date of coming into operation should be made coincident with the time when the reduction in contributions will have been made. We should remember the extraordinarily critical time through which we are passing. We should remember that possibly at this moment an endeavour is being made to gain an extension of time to carry us over a very critical period, and in such circumstances it is reasonable to ask for an extension of the period before this Clause becomes effective. By 18th December, the date which my Amendment fixes, we shall have had time to consider the position, instead of being precipitated into this situation without any alternative and without any method of safeguarding the interests of those who may be thrown out of employment. I hope the Minister will seriously and carefully consider the Amendment. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman does not want to accept the responsibility of causing any undue infliction upon those who are or who may be unemployed, and I ask him to accept what I regard as an entirely reasonable proposal.

Sir ROBERT NEWMAN: I beg to second the Amendment.
I do so, in one sense, with mixed feelings, because I have no desire to oppose the Government, but I desire to ask them if even at this moment they cannot see their way to accepting this suggestion. From, the business point of view, this is an Amendment which the Government ought to consider seriously.
My hon. Friend has pointed out that he has selected December 1st for the Clause to come into operation. Might I remind the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill that, if this Amendment were passed, it would not in any way interfere with the Bill; it would merely mean the postponement of the operation of the Clause till December 1st? I am sure there is not a Member of this House who would not agree with me in saying that at the present moment of great industrial unrest nobody can possibly say what the next four months may produce. I know that some hard things have been said of the Prime Minister during this debate. I do not say this simply because I am one of his supporters, but I say without any fear of contradiction that the average man and woman in this country, whether or not they agree with his views, look upon him as a man who is honestly trying to lead us through this industrial trouble, and I think it might contribute towards easing the situation, at any rate, if this Clause were suspended for four months. I know that my right hon. Friend may say that it will cost a certain amount of money, and I am afraid I do not agree with quite all that has been said by the Labour Members to the effect that we can disregard all questions of finance. Of course, we cannot.
I am not in a position to say how much this Amendment would cost, but I imagine that it would cost practically nothing; I do not suppose it would come to a farthing in the Income Tax. On the other hand, if the Clause were postponed for four months, at any rate the air would be to a certain extent cleared. If trade improves, as we all hope it will improve, and unemployment decreases, it is possible that the Minister in charge of the Bill will be very glad not to have to put the Clause into force. On the other hand, supposing things do not turn out so well as we hope they will, and there is a really serious dislocation in the labour market, I venture to think that some legislation will have to be resorted to, because I am certain that if there is any abnormal degree of unemployment the boards of guardians will not be in a position to meet the stress. May I, in conclusion, point out that this Amendment would not in any degree alter the Bill itself? The only
thing that it would do would be to allow four months to elapse, during which time we shall hope to be in a better position to judge as to the industrial conditions, because I am quite sure that there is no Member of this House who would like to do anything to cause hardship or injustice towards those men and women who are feeling most acutely the present depressed state of some of the industries of this country.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The Amendment has been moved, in most moderate language, asking me if I would accept a date for this particular Clause later than the date of the passage of the Bill into law, and the reasons which have been given have been, first, by my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Sir R. Newman), who seconded the Amendment, that the negotiations that are at present taking place with regard to matters of industrial trouble, and, secondly, by my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland (Mr. L. Thompson), who moved the Amendment, that more notice should be given before new people who are claimants have to undergo a waiting period. I know that the right hon. Gentleman opposite the Member for Preston (Mr. T. Shaw), my predecessor, is one who does not share my views of careful finance with regard to the Bill. Of course, I may be wrong, but I look to the expenditure that may be caused, and I have to realise that under present conditions the debt on the Bill is likely to be a very serious amount. [An HON. MEMBER: "Be reckless for once."] That is an awful appeal to make to a Scotsman! But if my hon. Friends wish it, I could meet them in this way: that is to allow for some period of notice. I am ready to move an Amendment that the waiting period should be from October instead of from the present date. The reason is this: I do not think anyone can forecast the future and say that any particular date in the near future is likely to be better than another. If hon. Members wish it, I am prepared to move as an Amendment to the hon. Member's Amendment to leave out the word "December" and insert "October." Even so the cost will be over £500,000, and money is not easy to come by at the present moment. But under all the conditions, which I realise as fully as any-
one, and the troubles at the. present moment, I am wishful not to be unaccommodating.

Mr. THOMPSON: Possibly I did not make myself clear, but the reason I warned to fix the date as 1st December was that I wanted a period when this House might be reassembling. If the Minister of Labour would meet me with a date that would correspond approximately with the time the House would reassemble so that it can deal with any industrial difficulty that might arise, I should be willing to make it 1st October.

Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: May I add to the appeal of my hon. Friend that the Minister should make it correspond with the meeting of Parliament? The whole idea of the Amendment is that Parliament should have power to review the matter if it comes into force. We are entering into a critical and possibly dangerous time and for all we know the effect of this Clause may be very bad indeed for the country. It may add to the unrest and discontent, and I do feel very strongly that we should have the power of reviewing this Clause.

Sir WILFRID SUGDEN: As my name is associated with this Amendment I want to add a few words to what the mover has stated. It was suggested across the House that certain sections of Lancashire will be adversely affected; that engineers, dock workers, and furnace men also are affected. I want to say that for the in-and-out underemployed trades it severely penalises those who are just coming into benefit and soon are out again continuously and who, as a class, will receive some assistance by this Amendment failing the elimination of Clause 3 which many of us desired. I know that the extension to December would be better than October, but, on the other hand if we cannot have December, I, for one, should support November. I do hope the Minister will, at any rate, give us November rather than September or even October.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, to leave out the word
"December", and to insert in place thereof the word "October."
If I might say one further word of explanation, I would ask my friends to accept October. I am making this concession to try and show that, if I am asked to do anything when there is a period of great stress, I am willing to try and do it as a temporary measure. But I would point out that if there is acute industrial trouble of course bigger things than this will probably have to go into the melting-pot, and it will be more than likely that this House would have an opportunity of considering this. But I hope that those to whom I am suggesting this will realise that I am doing this so as to give a period of notice, and in order to show that if one be asked to do something in a peculiar time of stress I am not unwilling to try and meet them.

Captain BENN: The right hon. Gentleman does not seem to understand that we are not asking alms of him The charitable note which runs through all his speeches does him credit, but becomes somewhat monotonous. The purpose of the Amendment is to try to secure some sort of Parliamentary control. If the right hon. Gentleman is going to say that Parliament will meet on 1st October, then I think many of the objections would be met. When he said greater things would occur, and that this House would be invited to consider them, was he giving a pledge that the House would meet? [HON. MEMBERS: NO!] Then what is the value of his argument? If it means nothing, and is only just an observation, it has absolutely no relation to the argument, and I would invite the right hon. Gentleman to say if he has the authority of the Patronage Secretary for a promise that Parliament will meet before this new power comes into force. If the right hon. Gentleman will address himself to that, I certainly will support any Amendment which tends to increase Parliamentary control over this power that he proposes to exercise.

Question put "That the word 'December' stand part of the proposed Amendment."

The House divided: Ayes, 98; Noes, 167.

Division No. 332.]
AYES.
[12.15 a.m.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)
Harris, Percy A.
Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Bromwich)


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon
Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W.R., Elland)


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')
Hayday, Arthur
Saklatvala, Shapurji


Ammon, Charles George
Hayes, John Henry
Scurr, John


Barr, J.
Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley)
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)


Batey, Joseph
Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Shiels, Dr. Drummond


Beckett, John (Gateshead)
Hirst, G. H.
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)


Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)
Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)
Sitch, Charles H.


Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish-
Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)
Slesser, Sir Henry H.


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)
Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)


Buchanan, G.
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Spencer, George A. (Broxtowe)


Cape, Thomas
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Stephen, Campbell


Charleton, H. C.
Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid


Cluse, W. S.
Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)
Sutton, J. E.


Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Taylor, R. A.


Compton, Joseph
Kelly, W. T.
Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)


Crawfurd, H. E.
Kennedy, T.
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)


Dalton, Hugh
Kirkwood, D.
Tinker, John Joseph


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Lansbury, George
Viant, S. P.


Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)
Lawson, John James
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


Day, Colonel Harry
Lee, F.
Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)


Dunnico, H.
Livingstone, A. M.
Westwood, J.


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Lunn, William
Whiteley, W.


Garro-Jones, Captain G. M.
Maxton, James
Wilkinson, Ellen C.


Gibbins, Joseph
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Gillett, George M.
Murnin, H.
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)


Greenall, T.
Naylor, T. E.
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)


Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
Paling, W.
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Groves, T.
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.
Windsor, Walter


Grundy, T. W.
Potts, John S.



Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)
Purcell, A. A.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Mr. Warne and Mr. Barnes.


Harney, E. A.
Riley, Ben





NOES.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Drewe, C.
Loder, J. de V.


Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.
Edmondson, Major A. J.
Lougher, L.


Allen, J. Sandeman (L'pool, W. Derby)
Fanshawe, Commander G. D.
Luce, Major-Gen. Sir Richard Harman


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Fielden, E. B.
Lumley, L. R.


Applin, Colonel R. V. K.
Finburgh, S.
MacAndrew, Charles Glen


Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.
Fleming, D. P.
McLean, Major A.


Atkinson, C.
Ford, P. J.
Macmillan, Captain H.


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Forestier-Walker, Sir L.
McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John


Balniel, Lord
Foxcroft, Captain C. T.
MacRobert, Alexander M.


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-


Barnett, Major Sir Richard
Galbraith, J. F. W.
Marriott, Sir J. A. R.


Barnston, Major Sir Harry
Ganzoni, sir John
Mason, Lieut.-Col. Glyn K.


Beamish, Captain T. P H.
Gates. Percy
Merriman, F. B.


Beckett, Sir Gervase (Leeds, N.)
Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham
Meyer, Sir Frank.


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Glyn, Major R. G. C.
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.


Betterton, Henry B.
Greene, W. P. Crawford
Moore, Sir Newton J.


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)
Morden, Col. W. Grant


Bird, Sir R. B. (Wolverhampton, W.)
Grotrian, H. Brent
Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive


Blundell, F. N.
Gunston, Captain D. W.
Nall, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Joseph


Boothby, R. J. G.
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Nuttall, Ellis


Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.
Hall, Vice-Admiral Sir R. (Eastbourne)
O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh


Boyd-Carpenter, Major A.
Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.)
Oakley, T.


Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Hanbury, C.
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William


Briscoe, Richard George
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Pennefather, Sir John


Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.
Harney, E. A.
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)


Buckingham, Sir H.
Harrison, G. J. C.
Peto, Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)


Bullock, Captain M.
Hawke, John Anthony
Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton


Burgoyne, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Alan
Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.
Price, Major C. W. M.


Burman, J. B.
Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxford, Henley)
Ramsden, E.


Burton, Colonel H. W.
Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootie)
Rawson, Alfred Cooper


Cassels, J. D.
Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.
Reid, Cap. A. S. C. (Warrington)


Cazalet, Captain Victor A.
Henn, Sir Sydney H.
Remer, J. R.


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.
Rice, Sir Frederick


Christie, J. A.
Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone)
Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Hopkins, J. W. W.
Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)


Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.
Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N.
Ropner, Major L.


Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Howard, Capt. Hon. D. (Cumb., N.)
Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.


Cooper, A. Duff
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)


Courthope, Lieut.-Col. Sir George L.
Jacob, A. E.
Sanderson, Sir Frank


Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.
Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)
Sandon, Lord


Crookshank, Cpt. H. (Lindsey, Gainsbro)
Kidd, J. (Linlithgow).
Sheffield, Sir Berkeley


Curzon, Captain Viscount
King, Captain Henry Douglas
Shepperson, E. W.


Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Slaney, Major P. Kenyon


Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Lamb, J. Q.
Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)


Dean, Arthur Wellesley
Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. sir Philip
Smithers, Waldron




Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Spender Clay, Colonel H.
Tinne, J. A.
Wise, Sir Fredric


Sprot, Sir Alexander
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement
Wolmer, Viscount


Stanley, Lord (Fylde)
Wallace, Captain D. E.
Womersley, W. J.


Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Will'sden, E.)
Waterhouse, Captain Charles
Wood, E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'dge & Hyde)


Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland)
Wells, S. R.
Woodcock, Colonel H. C.


Steel, Major Samuel Strang
White Lieut.-Colonel G. Dairymple
Wragg, Herbert


Storry Doans, R.
Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)



Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.
Williams, Herbert G. (Heading)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield)
Major Cope and Captain Margesson.


Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George

Word "October" there inserted.

Proposed words, as amended, there inserted in the Bill.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I beg to move, in page 2, line 15, at the end, to insert the words
and as though the following proviso were added:
Provided that if the continuous period of unemployment is longer than two weeks benefit shall be payable from the commencement.
The effect of my Amendment is that if an unemployed man or woman is idle for a period of two weeks or more that man or woman shall be entitled to be paid benefit from the first day of unemployment. This is the plan that is followed under the Health Insurance Scheme and in Workmen's Compensation cases. I think there is a good case to be made out for it in this connection. The Minister of Labour earlier in the Debate argued that a man or woman who was dismissed usually had a little surplus and that therefore they did not feel the first six days of unemployment very acutely. That may be true, but may I point out to him while a person who is idle for six days may not be hard hit, yet if a man is idle for 14 days he is beginning to feel the pinch very much, and ought to be paid from the first day of his unemployment. We are putting forward this Amendment in the hope of a compromise. We have made an effort to modify other provisions without success, but we made yet another effort. I suppose we shall be told that it will cost half a million or a million. I am glad to see the Minister of Labour in his place again. I suppose he has got over his job of lecturing the Tory party. No doubt ho will tell us that it will cost half a million pounds. On a previous Amendment he said it would cost that amount, and made the announcement as if it were a great concession. I can tell him that the working classes do not thank him for it. It seems to be a lot of money when
it has to do with the working classes, but when it comes to building cruisers then 58 millions is not much.
The reason why we are moving this Amendment is because we think that any person who is idle for 14 days is entitled to have unemployment pay as from the first day. In the days before the War it was common for workmen, particularly in the great industries, to get long periods of work. The moment a man or woman was given work the employer usually kept him for a long time, but nowadays in the shipbuilding and steel industries it is not uncommon, under the combination of employers, for a man to be taken on for a brief spell and then turned off. He may have six or seven weeks' work and then be idle for three weeks. If these men are going to be idle at the end of every six or seven weeks for about three weeks at a time they are going to be extremely hard hit under this Bill. We ask that the Amendment shall be accepted. I know from past experience of the Parliamentary Secretary and his chief that it will not be accepted. I had some experience when sitting with them on the Committee upstairs. I did have some hope of the Parliamentary Secretary that he had a broader mind than his chief, but after some seven or eight days in the Committee I came to the conclusion that if the Minister of Labour is bad the Parliamentary Secretary is no better. I do not expect that the Amendment will be accepted. The Government only accepted the month of October through fear. You will never convince them by argument. The only thing is to drive fear into their hearts. I put forward the Amendment because it will affect my own constituency and the industrial population of the country. I see no reason why it should not be accepted, except the argument that it will cost us half a million of money. And just as they tell us that they cannot find half a million pounds for the working
people of this country I know that tomorrow or the next day if they wanted them to fight as soldiers they would find ten times the amount. Half a million pounds saved for the working people is not half a milion pounds saved at all. It is stolen from them. It is nothing less than a common theft. In my district, people who do this, sort of thing would be looked upon as thieves: in this House they are elevated to Cabinet rank. We shall persist with the Amendment and record another vote in the Division Lobby against the present Government which will one day tell against them in the country. I content myself on moving it. I hate sob stuff as much as anyone, and I hope the Minister of Labour will at least spare our feelings and refrain from giving us a religious lecture when replying.

Mr. WESTWOOD: I beg to second the Amendment.
I am not going to make an appeal for sympathy to the representative of the Government. I have always said that if the Conservative party were in office and in power that they would take away the little advantages which were given to the unemployed during the short period of office of the Labour Party, and, therefore, I am not disappointed with their action in connection with this Bill. I support the Amendment because it is a final attempt to minimise some of the hardships which this Bill will entail upon the unemployed. This Clause compels an unemployed person to have a six days' waiting period. There is no other Act of Parliament which deals with the relief of poor people that makes them wait six days. Under the Workmen's Compensation Act, if a man is injured and is kept from work for some time, he loses three days. If he is off work for a month he gets paid for the full period. If this concession was logical in that connection, surely it is also logical now, and an unemployed man who has been out of work for a fortnight should be entitled to unemployment benefit for the full period instead of being docked these six days. I hope the Amendment will be accepted. It may cost half a million pounds, but a Government that can afford to spend £58,000,000 for building a navy can at least afford to see that the navy when built will be equipped with men;
though under the conditions now offered by the Government we shall have a C6 population instead of a C3 population. You will destroy the unemployed by the conditions in the Bill, and the Amendment will do something to relieve real suffering which will be placed on the unemployed people of this country.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I hope the hon. Member who moved this Amendment will not think I wish to trouble him or any other Member of the House with a religious lecture. I have never done so yet, and I hope I never shall in this House. At the same time, I must point out to him that it is not the way to encourage people to try and meet them to say that if you do meet them they will not thank you and that any concession is wrung from you by fear. That is not the way to create a conciliatory mood or induce anyone to meet you. In the present case, I am not moved by the hon. Member's unconciliatory manner or by any other reason. I am moved only by the merits of the Amendment; and on its merits I cannot accept it. In many cases in trade union practice you get a waiting period of six days, and that in some cases without any reimbursement afterwards.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Which unions?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I will send the hon. Member instances if he desires. I think I quoted them upstairs in Committee.

Mr. BUCHANAN: No. The right hon. Gentleman did not quote. I waited patiently to see if he did and I am still waiting to hear the statement of any union which does not pay for the six days.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I shall be glad to send the hon. Member instances. May I say that the patience was not all on one side in Committee upstairs. I know that in many cases trade unions have a waiting period, although in most cases the members are recouped afterwards. But there is this further difference between trade union practice and the Bill, that extended benefits under the Bill are given for an indefinite period. Having regard to all the circumstances of the case, I cannot accept the Amendment.

Mr. SHAW: I rise once again to protect against the idea that this is an ordinary
insurance scheme. We will not agree that it is anything of the kind. I state again definitely on behalf of the party I represent that we look upon this exceptional unemployment as a direct result of the War, for which the whole of the nation is responsible. It is a national responsibility to see that these men and these women are looked after. We cannot accept the suggestion that, because trade union contracts before the War were such-and-such, they should be applied in

this case. The conditions and responsibilities are quite different. We look upon the responsibility as a national responsibility, and we shall vote for the nation bearing its responsibility, and vote for this Amendment.

Question put: "That those words be there inserted in the Bill."

The House divided: Ayes, 79; Noes, 150.

Division No. 333.]
AYES.
[12.42 a.m.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)
Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)
Riley, Ben


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Harney, E. A.
Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W. R., Elland)


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')
Harris, Percy A.
Saklatvala, Shapurji


Ammon, Charles George
Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon
Scurr, John


Barnes, A.
Hayday, Arthur
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)


Barr, J.
Hayes, John Henry
Shiels, Dr. Drummond


Beckett, John (Gateshead)
Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Burnley)
Sitch, Charles H.


Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)
Henderson. T. (Glasgow)
Slesser, Sir Henry H.


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Hirst, G. H.
Smith, Ben (Bormondsey, R'hithe)


Buchanan, G.
Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)
Stephen, Campbell


Cape, Thomas
Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)
Sutton, J. E.


Charleton, H. C.
Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)
Taylor, R. A.


Cluse, W. S.
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)


Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Tinker, John Joseph


Compton, Joseph
Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


Crawfurd, H. E.
Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)
Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)


Dalton, Hugh
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Westwood, J.


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Kelly, W. T.
Whiteley, W.


Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)
Kirkwood, D.
Wilkinson, Ellen C.


Day, Colonel Harry
Lansbury, George
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)


Dunnico, H.
Lawson, John James
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Lunn, William
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Garro-Jones, Captain G. M.
Maxton, James
Windsor, Walter


Gillett, George M.
Murnin, H.



Greenall, T.
Paling, W.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.
Mr. Thomas Kennedy and Mr.


Groves, T.
Potts, John S.
Warne.


Grundy, T. W.
Purcell, A. A.



NOES.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Curzon, Captain Viscount
Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.


Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.
Davidson, J. (Hertf'd, Hemel Hempst'd)
Henn, Sir Sydney H.


Allen, J. Sandeman (L'pool, W. Derby)
Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Dean, Arthur Wellesley
Herbert, S. (York, N. R., Scar. & Wh'by)


Applin, Colonel R. V. K.
Drewe, C.
Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone)


Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.
Edmondson, Major A. J.
Hopkins, J. W. W.


Atkinson, C.
Fanshawe, Commander G. D.
Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N.


Balniel, Lord
Fielden, E. B.
Howard, Capt. Hon. D. (Cumb., N.)


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Finburgh, S.
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)


Barnett, Major Sir Richard
Fleming, D. P.
Jacob, A. E.


Barnston, Major Sir Harry
Ford, P. J.
Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)


Beamish, Captain T. P. H.
Forestier-Walker, Sir L.
Kidd, J. (Linlithgow)


Beckett, Sir Gervase (Leeds, N.)
Foxcroft, Captain C. T.
King, Captain Henry Douglas


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement


Betterton, Henry B.
Galbraith, J. F. W.
Lamb, J. Q.


Blundell, F. N.
Ganzoni, Sir John
Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip


Boothby, R. J. G.
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Loder, J. de V.


Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.
Glyn, Major R. G. C.
Lougher, L.


Briscoe, Richard George
Greene, W. P. Crawford
Luce, Major-Gen. Sir Richard Harman


Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.
Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)
Lumley, L. R.


Bullock, Captain M.
Grotrian, H. Brent
MacAndrew, Charles Glen


Burman, J. B.
Gunston, Captain D. W.
McLean, Major A.


Burton, Colonel H. W.
Hall, Vice-Admiral Sir R. (Eastbourne)
Macmillan, Captain H.


Cazalet, Captain Victor A.
Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.)
Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-


Christie, J. A.
Hanbury, C.
McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Margesson, Captain D.


Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.
Harland, A.
Mason, Lieut.-Colonel Glyn K.


Cooper, A. Duff
Harrison, G. J. C.
Merriman, F. B.


Cope, Major William
Hawke, John Anthony
Meyer, Sir Frank


Courthope, Lieut.-Col. Sir George L.
Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.
Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)


Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.
Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxford, Henley)
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.


Crookshank, Cpt, R. (Lindsey, Gainsbro)
Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)
Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive


Nall, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Joseph
Sanderson, Sir Frank
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Neville, R. J.
Sandon, Lord
Wallace Captain D. E.


Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Sheffield, Sir Berkeley
Waterhouse, Captain Charles


Nuttall, Ellis
Shepperson, E. W.
Wells, S. R.


O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh
Slaney, Major P. Kenyon
White, Lieut.-Colonel G. Dairymple


Oakley, T.
Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)
Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)


Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William
Smithers, Waldron
Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)


Pennefather, Sir John
Spender Clay, Colonel H.
Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield)


Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)
Sprot, Sir Alexander
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton
Stanley, Lord (Fylde)
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Price, Major C. W. M.
Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Will'sden, E.)
Wise, Sir Fredric


Ramsden, E.
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. Westm'eland)
Wolmer, Viscount


Rawson, Alfred Cooper
Steel, Major Samuel Strang
Womersley, W. J.


Reid, Capt. A. S. C. (Warrington)
Storry Deans, R.
Wood, E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'ge & Hyde)


Remer, J. R.
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Woodcock, Colonel H. C.


Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser
Wragg, Herbert


Ropner, Major L.
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid



Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.
Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, S.)
Colonel Gibbs and Captain Hacking.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I beg to move, in page 2, line 15, at the end to insert the words
Provided that in the case of a person who has received benefit in respect of a continuous period of unemployment commencing on a date subsequent to the first day of August, nineteen hundred and twenty-four, benefit for any further period of continuous unemployment shall be payable from the commencement.
I will content myself with formally moving this Amendment, which seeks to prevent a hardship. I ask the Minister if it is not possible to accept what I propose?

Mr. MAXTON: I beg to second the Amendment.
When a man has been sentenced to bread and water for a number of days, it is not regarded by the Prison Commissioners as right that he should go through the same thing again. That is the best parallel to what the Minister of Labour is imposing of which I am aware. Two periods of that description should not be imposed on the same man.

Mr. BETTERTON: I think the House will hardly expect the Government to accept this Amendment, if it realises what it means. It means that any man or woman who has served any waiting period at all since August, 1924, is to be free from such for all time hereafter. The result would, certainly, ultimately be that

the waiting period would be abolished altogether. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] That, no doubt, commends itself to the hon. Gentlemen opposite, but they could hardly at this stage ask the Government to accept it. The cost would be about £10,000,000 a year. Under these circumstances, if the facts are as stated, the House will realise that it is impossible to accept it.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: May I ask whether the Government could not accept the Amendment by the hon. Member for East Middlesbrough (Miss Wilkinson) which relates to any single year. That, I think, is a fair proposition in view of the Prime Minister's statement in reply to the unemployment Debate, when he said that employment is not continuous but a process of intermittent work in which men are out of and in work periodically. It is not right that a man may have in one year to forfeit three, four, five or six weeks, which would be the case under the Act in its present form. The hon. Member might consider the advisability of doing something to improve the position, so that one man shall not be called upon to forfeit so many weeks because of intermittent unemployment.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted in the Bill."

The House divided: Ayes, 76; Noes, 139.

Division No. 334]
AYES.
[12.55. a.m.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)
Cape, Thomas
Garro-Jones, Captain G. M.


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Charleton, H. C.
Gillett, George M.


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')
Cluse, W. S.
Greenall, T.


Ammon, Charles George
Compton, Joseph
Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)


Barnes, A.
Crawfurd, H. E.
Groves, T.


Barr, J.
Dalton, Hugh
Grundy, T. W.


Beckett, John (Gateshead)
Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)


Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)
Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)
Harris, Percy A.


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Day, Colonel Harry
Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon


Buchanan, G.
Dunnico, H.
Hayday, Arthur


Hayes, John Henry
Maxton, James
Taylor, R. A.


Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Burnley)
Murnin, H.
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)


Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Paling, W.
Tinker, John Joseph


Hirst, G. H.
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)


Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)
Potts, John S.
Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)


Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)
Purcell, A. A.
Westwood, J.


Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Riley, Ben
Whiteley, W.


John, William (Rhondda, West)
Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W.R., Elland)
Wilkinson, Ellen C.


Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)
Saklatvala, Shapurji
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)


Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)
Scurr, John
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Kelly, W. T.
Shiels, Dr. Drummond
Windsor, Walter


Kennedy, T.
Siten, Charles H.



Kirkwood, D.
Slesser, Sir Henry H.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Lansbury, George
Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)
Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr.


Lawson, John James
Stephen, Campbell
Warne.


Lunn, William
Sutton, J. E.



NOES.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)
Pennefather, Sir John


Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.
Grotrian, H. Brent
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)


Allen, J. Sandeman (L'pool, W. Derby)
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Hall, Vice-Admiral Sir R. (Eastbourne)
Price, Major C. W. M.


Applin, Colonel R. V. K.
Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.)
Ramsden, E.


Atkinson, C.
Hanbury, C.
Reid, Capt. A. S. C. (Warrington)


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Remer, J. R.


Balniel, Lord
Harland, A.
Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Harrison, G. J. C.
Ropner, Major L.


Barnett, Major Sir Richard
Hawke, John Anthony
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)


Barnston, Major Sir Harry
Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.
Sanderson, Sir Frank


Beamish, Captain T. P. H.
Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd, Henley
Sandon, Lord


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle
Sheffield, Sir Berkeley


Betterton, Henry B.
Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.
Shepperson, E. W.


Blundell, F. N.
Henn, Sir Sydney H
Slaney, Major P. Kenyon


Boothby, R. J. G.
Herbert, S. (York, N. R., Scar. & Wh'by)
Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)


Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.
Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone)
Smithers, Waldron


Briscoe, Richard George
Hopkins, J. W. W.
Spender Clay, Colonel H.


Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.
Howard, Capt. Hon. D. (Cumb., N.)
Sprot, Sir Alexander


Bullock, Captain M.
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Stanley, Lord (Fylde)


Burman, J. B.
Jacob, A. E.
Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Will'sden, E.)


Burton, Colonel H. W.
Kennedy, A. R. (Preston).
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. Westm'eland)


Cazalet, Captain Victor A.
Kidd, J. (Linlithgow)
Steel, Major Samuel Strang


Christie, J. A.
King, Captain Henry Douglas
Storry Deans, R.


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K
Lamb, J. Q.
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser


Cooper, A. Duff
Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid


Courthope, Lieut.-Col. Sir George L.
Loder, J. de V.
Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)


Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.
Lougher, L.
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, S.)


Crookshank, Cpt. H. (Lindsey, Gainsbro)
Luce, Major-Gen. Sir Richard Harman
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Curzon, Captain Viscount
Lumley, L. R.
Wallace, Captain D. E.


Davidson, J. (Hertf'd, Hemel Hempst'd)
MacAndrew, Charles Glen
Waterhouse, Captain Charles


Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
McLean, Major A.
Wells, S. R.


Dean, Arthur Wellesley
Macmillan, Captain H.
White, Lieut.-Colonel G. Dairymple


Edmondson, Major A. J.
McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John
Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)


Fanshawe, Commander G. D.
Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-
Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)


Fielden E. B.
Margesson, Captain D.
Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield)


Finburgh, S.
Merriman, F. B.
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Fleming, D. P.
Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Ford, P. J.
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.
Wise, Sir Fredric


Forestier-Walker, Sir L.
Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive
Wolmer, Viscount


Foxcroft, Captain C. T.
Neville, R. J.
Womersley, W. J.


Galbraith, J. F. W.
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Wood, E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'ge & Hyde)


Ganzoni, Sir John
Nuttall, Ellis
Woodcock, Colonel H. C.


Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham
O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh



Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Oakley, T.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Glyn, Major R. G. C.
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William
Major Hennessy and Major Cope.


Greene, W. P. Crawford

CLAUSE 4.—(Rates of Contribution.)

Captain BENN: I beg to move, in page 4, line 13, after the word "payable," to insert the words "by the employed contributor and."
This proposes to amend paragraph (d) (3) of Clause 4, which deals with the time when the Insurance Fund has approached more nearly to solvency. It
is provided in the paragraph that if at any time it appears to the Minister that the amount of the debt on the Fund does not exceed the amount as it exists to-day, he may then make arrangements by Regulations that the amount of contribution payable shall be reduced. That is a very natural and proper thing, and we look forward to the time when it shall be reduced. But the strange
thing about this provision is that it only allows for a reduction of the contribution by the employer and makes no allowance for a parallel or equal reduction of contribution by the employed per son. I think everyone will agree that, if we come to a time of greater trade, in which the Insurance Fund has been replenished and the debt is not greater than it is to-day, the employers will benefit by the improvement of trade at least as soon as, and probably just before, the workman. That being the case, it seems to me illogical to single out the employer and give the relief of 1d. first to, him and to make no corresponding relief in respect of the contribution by the employed workman. The purpose of the Amendment is that the relief given, when this fund is in this move satisfactory condition, shall be equal as between the two. There is no preference in our Amendment. What is given to the employer on the one hand should be given to the employed person on the other. I think this proposal is just and reasonable and will commend itself to all Members of the House, and I hope the Minister may see his way to accept it.

Major CRAWFURD: I beg to second the Amendment.
The hon. and gallant Member has explained its meaning and intention, and there is no need for me to say more.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I rise to say that I regret that we cannot accept this Amendment. Neither the Proposer nor the Seconder quite realised the circumstances of the case. The acumen and knowledge of history of the hon. and gallant Gentleman who moved the

Amendment were not quite so good as on previous occasions. He says both should be treated equally, that employer and employed should be on a parity. That is exactly what it is proposed to do by the Bill and what would not be done by the Amendment. I only ask the House to listen to what has been the actual history and the actual principles of the Bill from the beginning. In the early stages the contributions of employers and employed were the same in the case of men from its inception in 1912 to 1920. The contributions of the two were the same, 2½d. each. After that, when they were raised in 1920, they were again the same, 4d. each. When they were increased in 1921 because of the stress of unemployment, the employers' contribution, in order to try to meet the extra emergency, was increased by 1d. more than was the increase of the contribution of the employed. At the present moment, it is 10d. and 9d., and under the Bill it is still kept at a disparity, 8d. and 7d., and I only remark in passing that this disproportion of 8d. over 7d. is more than 10d. over 9d. The principle has been accepted by the hon. and gallant Gentleman that they should revert to being equal again. It is in harmony with the principles of the Bill, and really in harmony with the principles laid down by the hon. and gallant Gentleman, that both sides should be treated on a parity and that they should be equal. For that reason, I hope the arrangement in the Bill will be allowed to stand.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted in the Bill."

The House divided: Ayes, 76; Noes, 144.

Division No. 335.]
AYES.
[1.9 a.m.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)
Gillett, George M.
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Greenall, T.
Kelly, W. T.


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield. Hillsbro')
Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)
Kennedy, T.


Ammon, Charles George
Groves, T.
Lansbury, George


Barnes, A.
Grundy, T. W.
Lawson, John James


Barr, J.
Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)
Lunn, William


Beckett, John (Gateshead)
Harney, E. A.
Maxton, James


Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)
Harris, Percy A.
Murnin, H.


Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)
Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon
Paling, W.


Buchanan, G.
Hayday, Arthur
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.


Cape, Thomas
Hayes, John Henry
Potts, John S.


Charleton, H. C.
Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Burnley)
Purcell, A. A.


Cluse, W. S.
Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Riley, Ben


Compton, Joseph
Hirst, G. H.
Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W.R., Elland)


Dalton, Hugh
Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)
Saklatvala, Shapurji


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)
Scurr, John


Day, Colonel Harry
Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)


Dunnico, H.
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Shiels, Dr. Drummond


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Sitch, Charles H.


Garro-Jones, Captain G. M.
Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)
Slesser, Sir Henry H.


Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)
Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Stephen, Campbell
Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)
Windsor, Walter


Sutton, J. E.
Westwood, J.



Taylor, R. A.
Whiteley, W.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Thorne, W. (West Ham. Plaistow)
Wilkinson, Ellen C.
Sir Godfrey Collins and Major


Tinker, John Joseph
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)
Crawfurd.


Warne, G. H.
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)



NOES.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Grotrian, H. Brent
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)


Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.
Gunston, Captain D. W.
Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton


Allen, J. Sandeman (L'pool, W. Derby)
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Price, Major C. W. M.


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Hall, Vice-Admiral Sir R. (Eastbourne)
Ramsden, E.


Applin, Colonel R. V. K.
Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.)
Rawson, Alfred Cooper


Atkinson, C.
Hanbury, C.
Reid, Capt. A. S. C. (Warrington)


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Remer, J. R.


Balniel, Lord
Harland, A.
Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Harrison, G. J. C.
Ropner, Major L.


Barnett, Major Sir Richard
Hawke, John Anthony
Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.


Barnston, Major Sir Harry
Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)


Beamish, Captain T. P. H.
Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd, Henley)
Sanderson, Sir Frank


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Henderson, Lieut. Col. V. L. (Bootle)
Sandon, Lord


Betterton, Henry B.
Heneage, Lieut.-Col. Arthur P.
Sheffield, Sir Berkeley


Blundell, F. N.
Henn, Sir Sydney H.
Shepperson, E. W.


Boothby, R. J. G.
Herbert, S. (York, N. R., Scar. & Wh'by)
Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)


Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.
Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone)
Smithers, Waldron


Briscoe, Richard George
Hopkins, J. W. W.
Spender Clay, Colonel H.


Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.
Howard, Capt. Hon. D. (Cumb., N.)
Sprot, Sir Alexander


Bullock, Captain M.
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Stanley, Lord (Fylde)


Burman, J. B.
Jacob, A. E.
Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Will'sden, E.)


Burton, Colonel H. W.
Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. Westm'eland)


Cazalet, Captain Victor A.
Kidd, J. (Linlithgow)
Steel, Major Samuel Strang


Christie, J. A.
King, Captain Henry Douglas
Storry Deans, R.


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.


Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.
Lamb, J. Q.
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Cooper, A. Duff
Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser


Cope, Major William
Loder, J. de V.
Sugden, Sir Willfrid


Courthope, Lieut.-Col. George L.
Lougher, L.
Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)


Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.
Luce, Major-Gen. Sir Richard Harman
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, S.)


Crookshank, Cpt. H. (Lindsey, Gainsbro)
Lumley, L. R.
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Curzon, Captain Viscount
MacAndrew, Charles Glen
Wallace, Captain D. E.


Davidson, Major-General Sir John H.
McLean, Major A.
Waterhouse, Captain Charles


Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Macmillan, Captain H.
Wells, S. R.


Dean, Arthur Wellesley
McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John
White, Lieut.-Colonel G. Dairymple


Edmondson, Major A. J.
Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-
Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)


Everard, W. Lindsay
Margesson, Captain D.
Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)


Fanshawe, Commander G. D.
Mason, Lieut.-Col. Glyn K.
Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield)


Fielden, E. B.
Merriman, F. B.
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Finburgh, S.
Meyer, Sir Frank
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Fleming, D. P.
Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)
Wise, Sir Fredric


Ford, P. J.
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.
Wolmer, Viscount


Forestier-Walker, sir L.
Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive
Womersley, W. J.


Foxcroft, Captain C. T.
Neville, R. J.
Wood, E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'ge & Hyde)


Galbraith, J. F. W.
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Woodcock, Colonel H. C.


Ganzoni, Sir John
Nuttall, Ellis
Wragg, Herbert


Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh



Glyn, Major R. G. C.
Oakley, T.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Greene, W. P. Crawford
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William
Colonel Gibbs and Major Hennessy.

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I beg to move, in page 4, line 22, at the end, to insert the words
An order made under paragraph (a) of this Sub-section shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament in the same manner as regulations made under The Unemployment Insurance Act, 1920, and Sub-section (3) of Section thirty-five of that Act shall apply accordingly.
I undertook in Committee to bring forward an Amendment in order that this particular Order dealing with contributions should be laid upon the Table of the House. I, therefore, submit this Amendment to the approval of the House. Previously this Clause would
have left it to my discretion, without bringing it before the House, to say at what period the contributions, as stated in Clause 1, should be ordered. The argument was addressed to me by the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) that this should be done by Regulation laid on the Table of the House, in the same way as previous Regulations under Section 35 of the principal Act. I consented to do so, and I promised I would get it into proper wording. I submit it to the House, and hope it may be accepted.

Mr. STEPHEN: As the Member responsible for getting this concession from the
Minister, I desire to say I am quite willing to accept the form in which he has put it. I am sorry that the Minister of Labour could not have accepted the same form which appeared on the Amendment Paper earlier in the day dealing with Sub-section (3) of Section 35 of the principal Act. I think it would have been much better if he had made the concession earlier, but one has to be thankful for small mercies. I believe the total sum of concessions that have been made to us by the Minister consist in the addition of the word "aforesaid" in another part of the Bill, in the alteration in one place of 1926 to 1927, and the dole that he threw to a member of his own party to-night when he was threatened with revolt.
I do not really feel thankful to the Minister of Labour. I think the way he has carried through this Measure cannot be satisfactory to those who are opposed to him or to the Members of his own Party who are not very servile adherents. In accepting this Amendment I want to say that I am in thorough agreement with the hon. and gallant Member for Leith (Captain Benn) who has not had to suffer as much as we have from the lectures on charity by the Minister of Labour, a quality that he has not practised in this Measure.

Major CRAWFURD: I only want in a few sentences to enter my protest against the way in which this Amendment has been moved. It would have been much better from all points of view if the Minister had adopted the procedure which Is enshrined in several other Amendments, and explained exactly what is meant by the proposal, instead of pro-
ceeding by way of legislation by reference It does not make the meaning of the proposal clear.

Mr. MAXTON: Before the Amendment is put and carried I would like the Minister of Labour to tell us if he can say how much it is likely to cost during the ensuing year?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I cannot give the exact amount, but it will not be considerable.

Amendment agreed to.

Bill to be read the Third time tomorrow.

Captain BENN: On a point of Order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. May I ask whether the Question has been put to the House: "That the Bill as amended be reported"?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Captain Fitzroy): There is no Question put.

Orders of the Day — COAL INDUSTRY DISPUTE.

Mr. RAMSAY MacDONALD: Will you, Sir, allow me to ask the courtesy of the House to put a question of which I gave notice immediately after Questions today, namely, whether any statement can now be made regarding the position of the industrial dispute that is going on in the coal trade?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Commander Eyres Monsell): The Prime Minister has instructed me to say that he is not in a position to make any statement to-night on this subject, as he is meeting both parties to the dispute this evening.

Orders of the Day — TELEGRAPH [MONEY] BILL.

Read the Third time, and passed.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

It being after half past Eleven o'Clock upon Thursday evening, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at twenty-eight minutes after One o'Clock a.m., Friday, 31st July.